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

In that campaign, the KAP ran thirty-one candidates, and their list was headed by Benito Scocozza. Almost all of the party’s nominees were young people in their twenties and thirties, and few of them were women.[393] Eric S. Einhorn noted that the KAP “received meager support in this election.[394] This did not discourage them from competing in further elections in the 1980s.”[395]

However, the change was not immediately evident. On the occasion of the 11th Congress of the Chinese Party in 1977, the KAP sent its greetings and congratulations. The message said that “Today the People’s Republic of China is the reliable base area of the world revolution and stands in the forefront of the struggle against the two hegemonic powers, the Soviet Union and the United States, especially Soviet social-imperialism. We are convinced that by following the decisions of the 11th party congress, the socialist construction in China will be further strengthened and that China by the end of the century will stand as a strong modern socialist state. Long live the Communist Party of China under the leadership of Comrade Hua Kuo-feng! Long live the fraternal relations between the Communist Party of China and the Communist Workers Party of Denmark!”[396]

The KAP also endorsed the Three Worlds Theory and sent delegations to China in July-August 1977 and July 1978.[397] However, the allegiance to the Chinese Party and state on the part of the KAP soon weakened. It is notable that in their principal 1979 electoral pamphlet there is no mention of China, “Mao Tse-tung Thought” or any other indication of the party’s Maoist origins. Emphasis was totally on adopting Socialism to the Danish milieu.[398]

By 1979, there had begun a substantial shift away from Maoist ideology. Mads Bruun Pedersen has written that “Already in 1979, the party chairman, Benito Scocozza, began a discussion of Chinese socialism. It started with an article in the theoretical magazine Kommunistisk Tidsskrift 6/79 with the title ‘Den van-skelige socialism’ (The difficult socialism). … Here he discusses the lessons of the development in China in the light of the death of Mao, the party crisis and the trial of The Gang of Four.”[399]

The change in the basic orientation of the KAP was strongly reflected in the program adopted by the party in 1979, entitled “Det Vil Kap.” It raised the question, “Is the KAP the Chinese lackey in Denmark?“ It said that the Danish Communist Party was the “Soviet arm in Denmark, “ and then asked, “Is the same true of the KAP with regard to China?”

The document went on to explain that the KAP regarded China as a socialist country and one which was standing up to the “superpowers"; that although the KAP was in solidarity with China, it disagreed with the Chinese on several issues, such as NATO, the European Economic Community and Yugoslavia.[400] The Chinese, of course, supported NATO and the EEC and condemned the Yugoslavs, whereas the KAP was against NATO and EEC and was friendlily disposed toward the Yugoslav party and regime.

This was the start of the KAP’s break with Maoism. Subsequently, the party declined drastically. In 1988, Eric S. Einhorn referred to it as “the nearly defunct Communist Workers party … a Maoist relic that has not run candidates in the past three parliamentary elections.”[401]

Other Danish Maoist Groups

There were at least two other smaller Maoist groups in Denmark. One was the Kommunistisk Arbejder Forbund-Marxister-Leninister (Communist Labor League/Marxist-Leninist). The East German Communists labeled it as being “radical Left Maoist,” and noted that it had been established in December 1973 under the leadership of Jorgen Larsen and Paul Villaume. The other was the Danish Communist Party/Marxist-Leninist, which was established in December 1978 by a merger of two smaller groups and aligned itself with the Albanians.[402] Eric S. Einhorn noted that this group “infuriated the regular Communist Party (which never wavered from the Moscow line).”[403] Einhorn also noted in 1988 “the Marxist-Leninist Party, whose pro-Albania line attracted fewer than 1,000 votes in September.”[404]

Finally, there was the Mao Tsetung-Knedson, a Danish group that joined in signing a “Joint Communique” calling for the establishment of an orthodox Maoist International loyal to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four.[405] However, once the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement had been established in response to that call, there is no indication that any Danish group was affiliated with it.[406]

The Norwegian Workers Communist Party

As in the case of Denmark, Maoism in Norway did not originate directly from the pro-Moscow Norwegian Communist Party (NKP), but rather from dissident members (particularly among the youth) of the Socialist People’s Party, the “chief rival” of the orthodox pro-Soviet Communists in the Far Left of Norwegian politics.[407]

The Socialist People’s Party (SF) came into being in 1961, established by members of the Norwegian Labor Party who opposed that party’s support of NATO. It “had its initial basis in a small group of intellectual dissidents whose primary interest had been foreign policy.” In parliamentary elections later in 1961, “contesting in six districts … it polled nearly as large a vote as the Communist Party polled in nineteen districts, outpolling the Communist Party in every district where the two parties competed. It elected two members of Parliament.”[408]

In 1969, the youth group of the SF, the Socialist Youth Association (SUF) broke with the Socialist People’s Party, declaring itself Maoist and taking the name SUF (Marxist-Leninist). The SUF (ML) controlled the Norwegian Student Association. However, a U.S. State Department source reported in 1971 that the SUF (ML) “deferred plans for creating a new political party following its reassessment of the situation in the wake of the poor showing of the Swedish Maoist KFML in the September 1970 national elections.”[409]

A formal Norwegian Maoist party, the Workers Communist Party (AKP) was not in fact set up until late 1972. It was then established, according to Eric S. Einhorn, as “an amalgam of various Maoist groups that arose in the late 1960s, mainly as splinter groups from the SF and NKP youth organizations.” Its long-term chairman was Paal Steigan.[410]

The AKP published a weekly newspaper Klassekampen (Class Struggle). It also put out a theoretical journal, Rode Fane (Red Flag).[411] Although originating principally among students, it widened its support considerably in the 1970s. Eric S. Einhorn said that “the AKP has succeeded in gaining influential positions in several issue-oriented and interest organizations. Members have dominated the Oslo University Student Association for several years and have gained some important positions in trade union locals, although the larger unions as well as the Norwegian Trade Union Confederation (Landsorganisasjonen; LO) is firmly controlled by Laborites. With the growing importance of issue organizations in Norwegian politics, the strength and influence of the AKP may be far greater than meager electoral results.”[412]

The Party did participate in the parliamentary elections during the 1970s using the name Red Electoral Alliance. Although not faring very well in national elections, it was interested in them principally “as a forum for propaganda.” It was reported to have made “small gains” in the municipal elections of 1970.[413]