Delivered on 23rd May 2025
By Comrade Mwaivu Kaluka
[Acknowledging the Central Organising Committee, the Working Committee for the Theocon, the NDFP, the CPP, and all-Party Cadres]
Revolutionary Greetings, Comrades,
On behalf of the Communist Party Marxist Kenya, I extend our deepest gratitude to all fraternal parties, working-class organisations, and comrades who have honoured our call to participate in this 4th Theoretical Conference. We particularly thank the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, with the Communist Party of the Philippines at its core, for co-organising this vital gathering. Your presence here in Nairobi is not only a demonstration of proletarian internationalism, but a reaffirmation of our shared commitment to the revolutionary cause.
This conference is not a routine gathering. It is a continuation of the militant tradition that gave rise to the International Workingmen’s Association; the First International; and the Communist Internationals that followed. These were not academic forums but battlegrounds of theory, forged in struggle, where revolutionaries dared to chart the course for a new world free from exploitation and oppression.
Let us remember: these congresses were not dinner parties. Comrades traversed continents in secrecy, slept on train platforms, crossed through thickets and snow, risking imprisonment and death. Today, many of you arrived by aircraft in the heart of Nairobi, city of foreign finance capital, yet also a city that bears the scars and legacy of anti-colonial resistance. We welcome you to the land of the gallant Mau Mau, who fought with valour against British imperialism in this eastern corner of Africa.
We envision that by the conclusion of this conference, Nairobi will resound with the pulse of the world communist movement. The harmonisation of revolutionary voices gathered here will refine our doctrine, shape our strategies, and forge policies to sharpen the ideological and organisational blade of each participating movement. Communists never shy from the battle of ideas, we wage it without compromise, carrying the struggle through to its revolutionary conclusion.
The plenum sessions of this conference are designed to go beyond generalities. They will dig into the nuts and bolts, the dialectical and historical specifics of our revolutionary machinery. In this epoch of imperialist crisis and proletarian ferment, theoretical clarity is not a luxury; it is a weapon.
Revolutionary Theory, Practice, and the Conference Theme
Our great teacher Lenin taught us that “without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.” Theory is the torch that lights the path of struggle. But this torch does not descend from the heavens, nor does it spring forth from abstract speculation. Revolutionary theory is born out of the contradictions of lived experience. It is tested and refined through social practice; the highest criterion of truth.
Indeed, practice without theory is like a ship without a compass, adrift amidst the tides of counter-revolution, doomed to flounder on the rocks of confusion and retreat. But theory without practice is sterile, a lifeless abstraction. Only when the two interact dialectically; when theory guides practice, and practice transforms and advances theory; can we truly chart a revolutionary path toward the liberation of humanity.
As communists, we do not gather to engage in endless scholastic debates or intellectual gymnastics; the hallmarks of petty-bourgeois academia. Our task is not simply to interpret the world, but to change it. We analyse concrete reality not as passive observers but as revolutionary agents, armed with the science of Marxism-Leninism, in order to transform that reality. Let those who remain trapped in abstraction be warned; they will inevitably descend into obscurantism and political paralysis.
This Conference must give birth to concrete resolutions, rooted in material analysis, that each organisation here will carry forward as programmatic initiatives; initiatives that respond to the objective conditions and elevate the subjective forces of revolution. We must forge revolutionary tactics that correspond to the conjuncture; the complex interplay of contradictions shaping the current terrain of class struggle.
Theme of the Conference: Bureaucratic and Comprador Capitalism
Comrades, the theme of this year’s conference; Bureaucratic and Comprador Capitalism; was not selected arbitrarily. It emerges from the living contradictions of our time, and the specific character of our struggles in the neo-colonies. Like Darwin studied evolution and Newton codified the laws of motion, Karl Marx revealed the dialectical and historical laws of society; equipping the proletariat with the philosophical weapons necessary to understand and change the world.
Where previous philosophies groped in the dark, Marxism cast light on the structure of human society. Formal logic and idealist speculation were insufficient to grasp the world in motion. It was Marx who armed the international proletariat with the philosophy of dialectical and historical materialism; a method rooted in scientific investigation of social life and its contradictions.
It is this method that will guide our deliberations. We must examine the levels of development of the productive forces in our respective countries, and the relations of production that determine the social order. We must study the economic base; the material foundation; and how it shapes and is in turn shaped by the superstructure: politics, ideology, the state, and class rule.
Our discussions will centre on the class composition and stratification within the neo-colonies, the nature of imperialism as foreign finance capital, the national question and the international proletarian struggle, and the role of the state in socialist construction. These are not abstract topics; they are the heart of revolutionary strategy. They will inform our programmes, shape our tactics, and clarify the path to victory.
Neocolonialism and the Role of the Comprador-Bureaucratic Bourgeoisie
We are living in the era of monopoly capitalism; imperialism in its highest and most parasitic stage. In the neo-colonies, imperialism continues to exercise domination through finance capital, the same way it did during colonialism, but through new mechanisms of control and exploitation.
Independence in many of our countries did not usher in the liberation of the masses, but rather inaugurated a new form of domination. Imperialism did not permit the full development of capitalism in its classical form. Instead, it arrested and distorted it. The result is a stunted, dependent mode of accumulation in which the majority of our people are still tied to backward forms of production; subsistence farming and simple commodity production; while the commanding heights of the economy are controlled by multinational corporations.
Peasant production remains the material basis of survival for most of our people. But even this is under assault. Day by day, our peasants are being uprooted and dispossessed by the advance of monopoly capital; foreign corporations expropriate land, introduce capitalist farming, and destroy indigenous production. The few industries that exist are largely engaged in the export of raw materials, with negligible industrial transformation. They are financed by foreign capital, owned by foreign firms, and operated for the benefit of foreign markets. Thus, our nations remain subservient to imperialism; dependent, disarticulated, and structurally trapped.
The neocolonial state functions as an instrument of imperialist domination. What changed at “independence” was not the power structure but its local personnel. Imperialism recruited and trained a native intermediary class; the comprador-bureaucratic bourgeoisie; to manage the state on its behalf. This class is parasitic, anti-productive, and politically reactionary. It benefits from the crumbs of foreign capital and serves as the domestic executor of imperialist interests.
At the same time, the national bourgeoisie; weak, vacillating, and often indistinguishable from the comprador stratum; proves incapable of leading any genuine national development. While it may occasionally grumble about imperialist domination, it too exploits the working masses and fears the mobilised proletariat. It thus becomes a cowardly class, ready to compromise and capitulate to preserve its narrow interests.
Therefore, Comrades, our immediate enemy is not only imperialism in the abstract, but its concrete agent within our societies: the comprador-bureaucratic bourgeoisie. This is the class we must confront and defeat in order to redirect the forces of production and lay the groundwork for socialist transformation.
Strategic Tasks of the National Democratic Revolution and the Alignment of Class Forces
This concrete analysis of our present conditions leads us to the necessary conclusion: we must develop strategies and tactics that reflect the particular character of our struggle in the neo-colonies. The National Democratic Revolution (NDR) is the historical stage through which we must pass in order to resolve the fundamental contradictions of neocolonial domination and prepare the ground for socialism.
The principal enemy remains imperialism. But to defeat it, we must first confront its local agents; the comprador-bureaucratic bourgeoisie, who manage the affairs of the imperialist order in our own countries. These are the ones who guard the gates of underdevelopment, who misappropriate state instruments for the benefit of foreign capital, and who betray the aspirations of the working masses.
The NDR is not a reformist programme; it is a revolutionary struggle to smash the old neocolonial state and construct a new one under the leadership of the working class. It aims to transform the economic base by redirecting the development of productive forces and revolutionising the relations of production. Only by reorienting production to meet the needs of the people; rather than the profits of foreign firms; can we create the material conditions for socialist construction.
In this struggle, the working class is the decisive force. Organised and conscious, it must lead the revolution through its revolutionary class party; the vanguard and general staff of the people’s war for liberation. But the working class does not fight alone. Its most steadfast ally is the peasantry; the numerically largest and physically resolute class in the neo-colonies. Together, the worker-peasant alliance forms the basic alliance of the revolution.
Around this axis, we must seek to win over the middle forces, particularly the petty bourgeoisie, whose vacillations can be resolved through political education and mass work. At the same time, we must expose, isolate, and prepare to defeat the enemy classes; the imperialist bourgeoisie, the comprador-bureaucratic bourgeoisie, the landlord class, and the national bourgeoisie where it proves reactionary.
This alignment of class forces is not theoretical; it must be concretely forged through revolutionary mass work, ideological education, and political mobilisation. It must be guided by scientific analysis and revolutionary discipline. The United Front we build must be principled, not opportunistic. It must be based on a clear understanding of class struggle and a firm commitment to the revolutionary programme.
On the United Front, Mass Line, and Revolutionary Responsibility
In order to advance through the National Democratic phase of the revolution, we must forge a principled People’s United Front; a fighting alliance of the working class and its allies under the leadership of the proletarian party. This front is not a coalition of convenience, but a revolutionary vehicle through which we mobilise the widest possible masses around the correct political line.
The proletarian vanguard party must at all times provide ideological, political, and organisational leadership. It is the General Staff of the revolution. It must set the direction, clarify the objectives, and ensure that the front serves revolutionary ends, not reformist illusions or bourgeois compromise.
But leadership is not a matter of proclamation; it is earned in the struggle. The party must go deep among the masses, live with them, struggle with them, and listen to their grievances and insights. As Comrade Mao Zedong taught us, we must “from the masses, to the masses.” This is the mass line; the method by which we synthesise the spontaneous consciousness of the people into revolutionary programme and return it to the masses in the form of clear, actionable tasks.
When the people grasp our ideas, they become a material force capable of changing the world. No fortress can withstand the might of the people once they are conscious, organised, and determined. The masses are the makers of history; they are the fuel and engine of revolution. We, as communists, are but the spark and the steering wheel.
Let us remember always: our task is not only to speak of revolution but to make revolution. To carry forward the banner raised by those who came before us; the martyrs, the partisans, the guerrillas, the worker leaders, the peasant organisers, the revolutionary women who bore arms and ideas. We inherit their struggle, and we must be worthy of that inheritance.
Declaration and Final Revolutionary Call
In the name of our great Party, and on behalf of all revolutionary forces gathered here, I now declare this 4th Theoretical Conference officially open.
May our discussions be sharp, our analysis scientific, our resolutions militant and actionable. Let each intervention deepen our ideological clarity. Let each debate push us closer to unity in revolutionary strategy and proletarian internationalist practice. Let each conclusion inform the concrete struggles waged in factories, villages, schools, prisons, refugee camps, and forests.
Let this Conference be that single spark which ignites a prairie fire across all neocolonies; a fire that will burn through the old order and give birth to a new world founded on freedom, justice, and socialism.
Let us walk in the footprints of the Mau Mau in Kenya, the Hukbalahap in the Philippines, the PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau, the Viet Minh in Vietnam, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and all those who turned the gun and the pen against imperialism. Let us speak with the voice of Cabral, Nkrumah, Sankara, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il-Sung, Fidel, Lenin, and Mao. But more than speaking; let us act.
We have a revolutionary duty on our shoulders. A duty to carry the red flag forward, to deepen mass struggles, to build organs of people’s power, and to bring theory and practice into ever more intimate unity.
And to our fraternal comrades who will remain with us for African Liberation Day on the 25th of May; may this Conference lay the ideological groundwork for what we shall celebrate in practice: the struggle of Africa’s working class and oppressed peoples against neocolonialism and for socialism.
Let me close with the words of Chairman Mao Zedong, which echo the spirit of this gathering:
“Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.”
Let the flowers of Marxism-Leninism bloom in every continent. Let the schools of revolutionary thought contend in unity for the overthrow of imperialism and the triumph of the proletarian revolution.
Long live proletarian internationalism!
Long live the struggle against imperialism and comprador capitalism!
Long live the working class and peasantry!
Long live the National Democratic Revolution!
Forward to socialism! Forward ever; backward never!