ICL – 1st of May Declaration 2026: Marxist-Leninist-Maoists of all countries, unite!

Proletarians of all countries, unite!

1^st of May Declaration 2026:

Marxist-Leninist-Maoists of all countries, unite!

Revolutionary Peoples of the world unite and defeat imperialism, contemporary revisionism and all reactionaries!

The International Communist League salutes the international proletariat, the popular masses of the world and the International Communist Movement on the occasion of the Day of the International Proletariat.

This year, we celebrate the 60^th anniversary of the initiation of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) led by Chairman Mao Tsetung. It represents a grand milestone in the historical experience of the World Proletarian Revolution. Looking back at the past decades, we can see that its importance only have grown with time and its imperishable lessons need to be ever more upheld, defended and applied. Also, on this occasion, we pay homage to Comrade Basavaraj, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) who heroically sacrificed his life almost a year ago to defend Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the Party and the People’s War. Eternal Honor and Glory to Comrade Basavaraj!

Today the objective conditions for the development of the revolution in the World are excellent. The revolution is the main historical and political tendency. The People’s Wars persist and new ones are about to be initiated. It is a complex situation where wars of all types rage, coinciding with the explosiveness of the Masses increasing by the day. So, it is not strange that the defenders of the Old Order, the imperialists and all their servants, do everything they possibly can to confuse people and to spread pessimism. In this we communists have all the more reason to firmly grasp the strategic concept of Mao Tsetung, broadly spread during the GPCR: Imperialism and all reactionaries are paper tigers! It was precisely in this defiant and courageous spirit that comrade Basavaraj gave his life. Let us arm ourselves, our class, and the Peoples in the same way, and no vile revisionist or opportunistic defeatism will be able to cause confusion!

Imperialism is in a general crisis of decomposition

Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism, is monopoly capitalism and decomposing capitalism. It cannot offer any true progress to the masses, only further wars of plunder, exploitation and oppression. Today, the richest 10% possess 75% of the world wealth. The 0,001% richest persons, around 60.000 multi-millionaires, possess 3 times more wealth than half of humanity does. It is a process of concentration that increasingly accelerates, at a pace of 8% per year since the 1990’s. In 2025, the wealth of multi-millionaires grew with 16%, three times more than in the previous five years.

Imperialism represents an enormous centralization of Capital in the hands of Finance Capitalists of a handful countries. Of the 80 companies with the biggest liquid revenue in the world, 35 are from the United States, 19 from China, 5 from Germany, and 5 from Japan. This concentration is even higher in the banks: each of the 12 biggest banks in the world, most of them from the United States or China, have assets that are worth more than the whole GDP of Brazil. The funds of the global reserve of currency, used by the imperialists to increase control and centralization, also express this tendency. Currently, the stocks of the United States Treasury and the sovereign funds of the European countries together represent 80% of all the world reserves of currency (60% and 20% respectively), while the Chinese Renmibi reached only 2.83% – which shows the hegemonic strength of USA compared to China and other powers.

The fake discourse of imperialism on environment covers up the fact that the 1% richest persons are responsible for 41% of carbon emissions, and if we consider the richest 10%, this rate goes up to 77%. At the same time, half of the world population, the poor, represent only 3% of these emissions.

Imperialism, the monopolistic stage of dying capitalism, far from representing progress, keeps women tied to exploitation and oppression. Women, who represent half the world population, receive only a quarter of the wages. Violence against women is also growing everywhere. However, it was in Gaza where violence against women was the highest in the world, where at least 38 thousand women were murdered by the Zionist hordes.

At least 1.1 billion people in the countries oppressed by imperialism live in extreme poverty. 2.3 billion people face a situation called grave or moderate food insecurity and have to face skyrocketing inflation. Among these Masses, a great part are the very same peasants who produce around 70% of the worlds food.

The wars of US-imperialism further sharpen the acceleration of a new burst of world economic crisis and a worsening of life conditions of the Masses (pushed by inflation). The Chinese Real Estate Bubble, the difficulties of the Chinese imperialists to increase internal consumption, adds up to the bubble of the big tech companies of USA (who control 40% of US-stock capital).

Imperialism is in a general crisis of decomposition. When it tries to overcome its crisis, it unloads barbarism on the oppressed Peoples with even more cruelty, expanding wars of aggression, and its plunder. In a desperate attempt of maintaining its hegemonic position, US-imperialism applies increasing pressure on the other Western European imperialists, (as well as Japan and Australia), to force them to comply with its dictates and to serve its interests – which leads to stronger contention and a sharpening of the struggle among the imperialists. Wars for a new division of the loot – Latin America, Africa and Asia, including the so-called Middle East – are unfolding.

However, the counterrevolutionary offensive of imperialism, mainly impulsed since the beginning of the 1990’s – which aimed to detain the development of the struggles of the international proletariat and the national liberation struggles – completely failed. The objective and subjective conditions for the development of the two forces of world revolution, the national liberation movement and the international proletarian movement, develop favorably, showing clearly the beginning of a New Period of Revolutions in the world.

Our Tasks

Even with the subjective forces of revolution still being relatively weak, even more so are the Parties, armed forces and regimes of the ruling classes: the forces of counter-revolution rest on a rotten base. This offers the conditions for the forces of revolution to advance in leaps. Under these conditions, the forces of the whole International Communist Movement are being called to a great challenge: to put Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as the command and guide to impulse World Proletarian Revolution.

In order to fulfill the historical task, it is unavoidable and urgent to advance in the constitution and reconstitution of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist communist Parties to – in the midst of hard class struggle and in the midst of a complex of wars of many types – be able to develop revolutionary war, People’s War, to impulse the World Proletarian Revolution. The communists everywhere in the world face two urgent tasks. First and foremost, to defend the red banner of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism flying in India, to close rank with the Communist Party of India and to raise the support of the People’s War it leads to new levels, fighting back the converging attack of Imperialism, Revisionism and Reaction. Secondly, to impulse the worldwide anti-imperialist mobilization, raising its combativeness through actions that sweep away the legalistic and reformist shackles that opportunism and revisionism tries to impose, by unleashing the just rage of the Masses, especially supporting the struggles against imperialist aggression and for national liberation of the nations and Peoples in Latin America and the Middle East, which are the basic aspect.

This new period is marked by a fact of great transcendence: the Al-Aqsa Flood from October 7^th, 2023. This event was not only an heroic act of an oppressed people, but also a defeat for US imperialism in the region. The counter-offensive of the Palestinian National Resistance on October 7^th shook the whole foundation of regional and world order. It has shown that the ones below do not accept to keep on living as before and the ones above cannot keep on ruling as before. All the development of world situation is deeply marked by this great event. Al-Aqsa Flood represented the defeat of the Oslo Accords and the Abraham Accords, and was a blow against the State of Israel, the main bastion of US-imperialist power in the region, it forced US imperialism to aid ever more the State of Israel and to increase its war of aggression to maintain its domain.

The Palestinian National Resistance have heroically fought the heinous genocide for three years, an enemy armed and financed by the far strongest imperialist Power on the planet, with a superior weaponry, forcing it to make a peace agreement. The “paper-tiger character” of US-imperialism and their Israeli henchmen were shown to the whole world. Within Israel, all its contradictions deepened. Israel is more dependent than ever on the money and weaponry of the USA to survive.

The three years of unbreakable Palestinian National Resistance have elevated the political consciousness of the Masses all over the world. As a result, the anti-imperialist movement is developing in all countries – both oppressed and imperialist – in an impressive way. More than ever, the existence of the State of Israel is questioned by the Peoples of the world, who wants its destruction and the construction of a free Palestine. A growing new wave of the anti-imperialist movement is reaching every corner of the globe, which calls for imperialism to be swept away and for an end to all reaction. After three years of war, the facts show that it is the Masses, the People of Palestine, who are truly powerful, and not the US-imperialists and their Israeli henchmen.

In its war of aggression against Iran, the United States aim to produce a “regime change”, through its local lackeys, and to retake control over the country that was lost in 1979. Among its objectives, one was to prevent the strategic approach of Iran with China and to undermine the energy supply of the latter. However, it was not only a war for the control of resources. When striking Iran, the US-imperialists and the State of Israel also aim to isolate and defeat the forces of national resistance against US-imperialism in the region. After more than 40 days of a fierce joint military campaign against Iran, Lebanon, Palestine and Yemen, the USA has failed to reach any of its objectives.

The genocidal Trump and Netanyahu claim fake victories. Chairman Mao said that the US-imperialists are completely arrogant and deny reasoning, and this feature comes from its own class nature and is ongoing decomposition. Its arrogance will only lead to further failures. Despite suffering successive defeats, US-imperialism will keep making trouble until its final defeat, this is the logic of all imperialists.

In Latin America, USA accelerates its plans to increase control over the region. US-imperialism has orchestrated the kidnapping of President Maduro and Cilia Flores and bombarded Venezuela to control the country and its oil. The US-imperialists bombarded the cradle of the independence struggle against Spanish colonial dominion and pointed their guns directly against the Peoples of Latin America, especially against the Cuban nation who have been resisting US might for decades, struggled against the criminal blockade and continued aggression, while defending its sovereignty. Today more than ever, we must raise the slogan: Yankees no! Cuba, yes!

The vile aggression against Venezuela was only the beginning of a new offensive of imperialist interference and aggression against the continent. In this new situation everyone will have to choose a side. The side of the majority: the one of indigenous Peoples, peasants, working masses of the cities and the countryside, the youth (who enroll into the first rows of the struggle), and the organizations who rise against the imperialist aggression and its lackeys – Or the side of the worst traitors, the partisans of the theory of national subjugation, the ones like Lula, Sheinbaum, Boric, Petro – who rushed to offer his despicable service to Trump and crawled to the White House to ask for weapons against the peasant war in Colombia – and Mrs. Rodriguez.

The Yankee aggression against Latin America, which undoubtedly will increase even more in the upcoming period, is an actual confirmation of the decisive fact that the continent is the weakest link in the imperialist chain, the battleground where the future development of the World Proletarian Revolution will be defined. In Brazil, the country with the biggest concentration of masses in Latin America, battles that will make the old order and imperialist domination tremble are being forged.

The imperialists are spreading their forces over vast zones of Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Also within the imperialist countries they are mobilizing their repressive apparatus against their own people. The imperialists and reactionaries, like the giants with feet of clay that they are, in reality are nothing more than small fortresses, small islands surrounded on all sides. The oppressed Peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America are part of this huge ocean of masses of the proletariat and oppressed Peoples. The more deeply imperialism penetrate in these revolutionary zones, the faster it will be surrounded by the seas of rebelling masses of the world that will bury them by waves.

The policy of imperialism is to divide the Peoples by religion, ethnic origin and nationality. The policy of the communists is to unite all the oppressed and exploited masses against a common enemy. The anti-imperialists are advocates of the right to self determination of all nations. Defeating imperialist aggression is part of the tasks of the New Democratic Revolution. This is why the communists must support and take active part in the resistance, fighting with independence and self-decision, against aggression and in the midst of struggle establish a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist proletarian leadership, which is an indispensable condition for a consistent struggle against imperialism, necessarily linked to the struggle to complete the Democratic Revolution in the oppressed countries.

Those who have assumed a firm position in deeds for the national resistance against US- imperialist and Zionist aggression, in defense of the right of national self-determination, objectively stand on the side of the anti-imperialist front and must be supported as long as they maintain this stand. Therefore, facing the fact that the Peoples and toiling masses are wielding arms against the imperialist aggressors we must say: the more the better! That also other classes are wielding arms to defend the sovereignty of a nation is good, we must also say “better more than less”.

All those who act as – or offer themselves to be – pawns of the imperialist aggressors are part of the front of imperialist aggression and it is a duty of the anti-imperialists to denounce and combat them.

US-imperialism is ever more isolated, and all the Peoples of the world recognize that imperialism is the source of all wars. The struggle against imperialist aggression is a great source of inspiration and the anti-imperialist movement is rising everywhere. This current is the main base for the impulse to develop Revolution in the world.

However, the consistent struggle against imperialism must not be limited to the struggle against aggression. In order to develop a consistent struggle it must proceed in destroying the bases of imperialist domination in the countries of bureaucratic capitalism, the big bourgeoisie and the big landlords, through the New Democratic Revolution. In the imperialist countries, the imperialists must be combated in their own citadels, a struggle to be waged inseparably from the national liberation movement of the colonies and semi-colonies, through the Socialist Revolution. The highest, the most concrete and consistent, expression of struggle against imperialism is found where it develops into true Revolutions led by Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Parties through People’s Wars. These struggles are the highest trenches in the struggle for sweeping away imperialism and reaction from the face of the earth and to build a new power.

This is why, nowadays, our hearts and minds must be directed to the Indian sub-continent, where the Communist Party of India (Maoist) leads a New Democratic Revolution through People’s War, bravely mobilizing the broadest Masses of the People in defense of their rights, and among these the highest one: Revolution. In the most populous country in the world, the imperialists and their lackeys are developing a heinous war against the people. The infamous Operation Kagaar which was recently ended, was another chapter of the War Against the People led by the Indian ruling classes who are servants of imperialism. Today, we can affirm that Operation Kagaar failed, as well as the previous operations, like Operation Green Hunt, and all the future counter-revolutionary operations against the people will fail, until the final defeat of reaction.

The fascists that aim through all means to suffocate the Indian Revolution do not achieve more than to make its voice extend further throughout the world. The war-cry of Comrade Basavaraj echoes throughout the world. The decision of the communists in closing ranks with the CPI (Maoist) is the greatest proof of this.

Bombard the headquarters of revisionism!

Chairman Mao taught us that only by combating revisionism it is possible to develop the forces of Revolution. This is why, facing new tasks of world Revolution, it is necessary to elevate the struggle between Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and revisionism in all its forms. Today, when we celebrate the 60^th anniversary of the GPCR, we must reaffirm our struggle against capitalist restoration in China, raising our struggle against revisionism of the false “CPCh”. The revisionism of Xi Jinping represent one of the main variations of revisionism, one of the main dangers of the international proletarian movement and the national liberation movement and it must be fiercely combated on all fronts.

The revisionism of Xi Jinping is part of the counterrevolutionary current in the world, it uses false red banners to combat the development of the two currents of world Revolution. Xi Jinping is a loyal follower of the path of Deng Xiaoping, defined in 1988 as “passing from the class struggle into productivity, from isolation into openness”. The Chinese social-imperialists are socialists in words and imperialists in deeds.

The role of social-imperialist China and imperialist Russia in the recent conflicts show their nature. The Syrian sovereignty was sold out through a deal between the Russian imperialists and the North-Americans, handing over the country to warlords, pro-imperialist Salafist mercenaries, in exchange for their interests in Ukraine. It was shown how, in contention and collusion, Russia served the Syrian sovereignty on a plate to the US-imperialists.

In Palestine, at the same time as the National Resistance Front wage a fierce war against occupation and the genocide perpetuated by Israel, the Chinese social-imperialists strengthened their relations as the second socioeconomic partner of Israel and the first destination of its export. Through their agents, they encouraged capitulation and the bureaucratic path represented by the false “Palestinian Authority”.

The Chinese social-imperialists, while making “smooth” statements against the war of aggression, made back-room negotiations with the sovereignty of the countries and the interests of the People in exchange for agreements aligning with their own economic interests. In order to deviate the anti-imperialist movement from the revolutionary path, the Xi Jinping-revisionists is trying to resuscitate the poorly named “Third-Worldist” theories of “Global South”, BRICS, etc. In this, they count on the aid of the old revisionist parties across the world. This is a counter-current that aims to undermine and deviate the national liberation movement to serve the interests of different imperialists.

In 1966, at the dawn of the GPCR Chairman Mao defined revisionism as the abandonment of the struggle against the enemy. This is the essence of modern revisionism. This is the spirit spread by Xi Jinping-revisionism, the spirit of capitulation in the struggle against imperialism and reaction.

Chairman Mao stated that the proletariat has a brilliant future and that revolutionaries are proletarian optimists – this is an ideological question of great importance. The overcoming of the old by the new is a general and inviolable law of the Universe. Pessimism is an expression of revisionism, it reflects the non-proletarian ideology, opposed to dialectical materialism, it is the anteroom of capitulationism and liquidation, and it must be swept away from our ranks.

The revisionist, capitulationist, and traitorous clique of Sonu in India and their followers in the ICM, are loyal standard-bearers of pessimism, capitulation, lack of confidence in the masses, the Party and the Revolution. For them, it is not the masses, but the imperialists who are all-powerful. They do not care about the interests and the fate of the masses, of the proletariat and the people, the only thing that fill up their hearts and minds are individualism.

Their spirit is opposed to the true leaders of the CPI (Maoist), like Comrade Basavaraj, who armed the Party with the spirit of combating the enemy, with bravery, giving an example of giving ones life for the Party and Revolution. Defending the path of People’s War, Comrade Basavaraj stated that “The PLGA must turn itself into an invincible red army that dares to destroy the enemy, revealing its great valor. The people’s war waged by such a red army led by the party is invincible.”

In addition Comrade Basavaraj highlighted and has proved with his own life that: “it is very necessary to fight with courage, valor, and sacrifice to defend our party, the PLGA and the organs of popular power from the attacks of the enemy, to gain new victories, to advance in leaps and to inflict more losses to the enemy. Therefore, our offensive against the enemy should always be full of class hatred, bravery and determination. We must notice that it is not possible to achieve our political goal and to realize the interests of the people without sacrifice.”

All the communists of the world should combat Sonus capitulationism and embody the fearless spirit of Comrade Basavaraj and of the several dozens of Leaders and innumerable Masses who sacrificed their lives for Revolution. When sacrificing his life for the Party and Revolution, Comrade Basavaraj did not allow the ideology of the proletariat and the Party to be stained, conquering a complete victory of the CPI (Maoist) against revisionism and capitulation, and hence, a victory of the whole ICM.

Xi Jinping re-rehabilitated Li Shaoshi, “the Chinese Khrushchev” in order to promote propaganda of “peaceful transition”, “peaceful co-existence” and peaceful “competition”, to replace the struggle against imperialism and class struggle with the rotten “theory of productive forces”. Just like the ROL in Peru and Prachanda in Nepal, the clique of Sonu in India advocate the negation of the New Democratic Revolution, the negation of the stage of Agrarian Revolution, the need to destroy the semi-feudal base in semi-colonial countries, when claiming that “semi-feudalism is already surpassed”, as “a result of imperialist domination”.

Comrade Basavaraj taught that the communist mustmobilize the peasants militarily in a vast scale in the armed Revolution in order to fully solve the question of land, this is the most essential basic condition and the precondition to defeat all enemies and to complete the New Democratic Revolution. These are truths that must be firmly upheld by all communists.

There are still covert advocates of the ideas of Sonu in the ranks of the ICM, ashamed followers of Avakian, Prachanda and the ROL, and of Xi Jinping. They wrap themselves in red flags, in order to make proclamations “against imperialism and in defense of the People’s War in India”, but do not actually combat imperialism in deeds and refuse to go against the current. These gentlemen do not lose a chance to speak out against sectarianism in defense of “unity”, but at the same time viciously attack anyone how do not accept their “leading role”, making intrigues and plots with know traitors and snitches, and seeks unity with the “retirement home of ideological charity” represented by the revisionist ICOR. They are the same, as those who may say hard words against imperialism but long have given up the struggle against the imperialist bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries (which also includes their “own bourgeoisie”), but instead preach social-chauvinism and -patriotism. This is a fifth column against the ICM and the World Revolution that must be unmasked.

Revisionism is the main danger for the ICM, it is a counter-current that aims to hinder the struggles against imperialism and to deviate them from their revolutionary content by dividing the two currents of world Revolution.

We must learn and apply what Chairman Mao defined about strategy and tactics of the world Revolution for the current epoch: Marxist-Leninist-Maoists of all countries, unite! Revolutionary Peoples of the whole world unite and defeat imperialism, contemporary revisionism, and all reactionaries! In this way, the national liberation movement merges with the international proletarian movement and these two forces impulse the development of world history.

The proletarian Revolution takes a national form, but its essence is international. Revolution in each country develops as part of and inseparably from the World Revolution. The ICL reaffirms its oath of continuing to move heaven and earth to advance in the principal task of putting Maoism as the command and guide of the world proletarian Revolution, re-unify the ICM and advance in the construction of an international organization of the proletariat, in the path of reconstituting the great Communist International – an indispensable instance of the communist movement to strike imperialism on each part of the planet as one single iron fist.

Long live the 60^th anniversary of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution!

Bombard the headquarters of revisionism!

Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!

Long live the International Communist League!

Down with imperialism! Long live the People’s War!

International Communist League

1^st of May, 2026