Читать онлайн "Maoism in the Developed World" - Alexander Robert Jackson - RuLit

The CPB (M-L) published a fortnightly paper The Worker. However, the main importance of the party was derived from its major leader and spokesman, Reg Birch. He was a long-time member of the Executive Committee of one of the country’s largest national unions, the Amalgamated Engineering Union, and in September 1975 was also elected to the General Council of the Trade Union Congress.[243]

As might have been expected, the CPB (M-L) adopted extremist positions, both in the industrial and general political field. D. L. Price wrote in 1974 that “Though small in numbers, the CPB ML operated intensively in the engineering industry, in campaigns aimed at destroying the Industrial Relations Act. The campaigns took the form of occupations of factory premises and rallies: ‘Occupations lend themselves admirably to the present phase of guerrilla struggle. … Every guerrilla struggle is a rehearsal for the final confrontation when it will not be individual factories occupied tactically but the whole employing class expropriated strategically.’ Reg Birch forecast that his party would become increasingly militant: ‘We will fight for our rights. … Well take it out into the open and well have a civil war about it.’”[244]

The party apparently did not take part in elections. Following the October 1974 general election, it indicated its apocalyptic view of the situation in a statement that claimed, “We are in a fight to the death—the death of a class, them over us. They will not bury us. We will bury them.” … Such a line led one observer to comment that in 1974 “the party steadily lost credibility, as its propaganda became increasingly doctrinaire and extreme.”[245]

The CPB (M-L) was in 1974 credited with being “the only pro-Chinese party in Great Britain whose activities are publicized by the People’s Republic of China.”[246] The year before, Reg Birch had made an extended visit to Peking and Tirana, where he was given interviews there with Chou En-lai and Enver Hoxha, respectively.[247]

Other Maoist Groups

The CPB (M-L) was not the only pro-Maoist party in Britain in the 1970s, however. In 1976, Richard Sim reported that “In 1976 eight pro-Chinese Marxist parties were identified as still operative in Britain though all were very small.” Of these, Sim said, the PCB (M-L) was “the largest, with a membership of 300—400.”[248]

By the late 1970s there was a second Maoist group of at least some significance, the Revolutionary Communist League of Britain. It was formed in 1978 by the merger of the Communist Federation of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) and the Communist Unity Association of Britain (Marxist-Leninist).[249] It came to associate itself with the Albanians against the Chinese.[250]

By the early 1980s, the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) and the Revolutionary Communist League of Britain were reported to be the only two Maoist groups that “can make any claim of having a visible organization” in the United Kingdom. In general, Maoism was said to be “in serious decline.”[251]

British Maoism was affected by the split between China and Albania. The Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) supported Albania in its quarrel with the successors of Mao Tse-tung. The CPB (M-L)’s rival, the Revolutionary Communist League of Britain, was said to “admire the Pol Pot regime”[252]

According to the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (the grouping of the supporters of the Maoism of the Great Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four), it has had supporters in Great Britain. However, the designation of these supporters has changed over time in various publications of the RIM. In one of its earliest pronouncements, a “Joint Communique” of 1980, the British affiliate was listed as the Nottingham Communist Group.[253] In the Declaration of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement of March 1984, it was said to be the Revolutionary Internationalist Contingent.[254] A listing of “Participating Organizations in RIM” in the December 1996 issue of the RIM magazine, A World to Win, does not include any British organization. However, the headquarters of the RIM continued to be in London.[255] We have no further information concerning the British affiliates of the RIM.

Greek Maoism

The emergence of Maoism in Greece took place against the background of the military dictatorship, often called “the colonels’ regime,” which was set up after a coup in 1967, and which was finally overthrown in July 1974. In that period, at least four different Maoist groups or parties were established in Greece. We have no information as to whether any of these groups was officially recognized by the Chinese Communist Party. As was true in most countries, the Greek Maoists were characterized by considerable internal dissension and splitting. Whatever strength the Greek Maoists had seems to have been principally among students.

During the period of the colonels’ rule, the pro-Soviet Communist Party of Greece (KKE) suffered a serious split. As a consequence of this, there were formed two separate parties, one of which was popularly referred to as the “exterior faction.”[256] Both groups continued their separate existence throughout the colonels’ regime and in the subsequent democratic period. This split served, as one might have expected, to strengthen the Maoist tendency in Greek Communism.

The Organization Of Marxist-Leninists Of Greece

The oldest of the Maoist organization in Greece was the Organization of Marxist-Leninists of Greece (OMLE), which was established in the mid-1960s. Maurice Goldboom noted in 1968 that “most of its members were never connected with the official Communist movement.”[257] In subsequent years, two of the other groups in Greece originated from splits in the OMLE.

In 1978, D. George Kousoulas noted that the OMLE “often attacks the Soviet ‘social imperialism’ and has sided with Hua Kuo-feng and against the ‘Gang of Four.’”[258] The principal leader of the OMLE was Steois Manousakas, and its periodical was Laiko Dromos.[259] In 1981, D. George Kousoulas noted that the OMLE “broke up into several factions in 1979; the internal feuds continued in 1980.”[260]

The Communist Party of Greece (Marxist-Leninist)

Two parties appeared using the name Communist Party of Greece (Marxist-Leninist) or KKEML. The older of these was formed in 1969 by dissidents from the OMLE.[261] It held its First Conference in April 1972. That meeting passed a resolution that said, “We must understand the struggle is between true revolutionary Communists on the one side, the Marxist-Leninists of the entire world under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of Albania, and on the other revisionists and opportunists of every ilk, led by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. … Today’s revisionists are above all the defenders of a new bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie of the social imperialist Soviet Union.”

At the time of its establishment, it was not possible for the KKE (Marxist-Leninist) to publish any open periodicals in Greece because of the military dictatorship. However, its members in exile did publish Laiki Foni (People’s Voice), Anaghenissi (Renaissance or Resurrection), and Espanastatis (Rebel).[262]