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

Finally, mention should be made of a sixth Maoist-oriented group that existed in the early 1980s and had some relationship with the Revolutionary Communist Party of the United States. This was the Union of Marxist-Leninist Struggle (Unida de Lucha Marxista-Leninista).

Both in 1981 and 1982, the ULML sent messages to the Revolutionary Communist Party concerning May Day events in Spain. That of 1982 proclaimed that the hold of the “revisionism and reformism” of the Socialists and the PCE on the Spanish workers was declining, as was that of “groups of the ‘revisionist far left.’” It lamented the “absence of a Marxist-Leninist party,” which resulted in the workers “becoming inactive and confused.”

The seat of the Union de Lucha Marxista-Leninista was indicated to be Madrid. But there was no indication whether the organization was established in any other part of Spain.[487]

Conclusion

In the 1960s and 1970s, a considerable variety of organizations appeared in Spain that claimed to adhere to Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought. None of these seems to have an appreciable influence in the organized labor movement—either in the Socialist-controlled Union General de Trabajadores, or the PCE-dominated Comisiones Obreras, or the regional Solidaridad de Trabaj adores Vascos in the Basque country. Nor did any of them make any appreciable mark on the general politics of Spain in the last phase of the Franco regime or in the post-Franco era. Only two of these groups, the Communist Party of Spain (Marxist-Leninist) and the Revolutionary Organization of Workers, were reported to have any direct relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.

Swiss Maoism

The Swiss Communist Party was outlawed during World War II. When it was allowed to reappear openly in Swiss politics, it took the name Swiss Labor Party. It remained loyal to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, although there were some pro-Chinese elements within it, and as late as 1968 it was reported that “The Party still suffers to some extent from the internal doctrinal disputes, primarily ones arising out of the Sino-Soviet quarrel.”[488] It took a strong stand on the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.[489]

A group sympathetic to the Chinese broke away from the Swiss Labor Party in 1963 and formed the Swiss Communist Party (KPS). It was confined, at least in its early years, largely to the French-speaking cities of Biel, Vevey and Lausanne. Although it claimed a membership of 300, the U.S. State Department said its “active membership may be only a few dozen.”[490]

Although generally favorably disposed to the Chinese, the KPS, at least in its early years, was not entirely uncritical of them. Early in September 1964, the KPS newspaper L’Entincelle published an article that questioned the Chinese claim that “imperialism is a paper tiger.” It said “We think that that is wrong. Lenin always said that one should never underestimate the adversary. … It is wrong to maintain as do the Chinese comrades that socialist society would exist after an atomic war. It is wrong and it is dangerous.”

However, the Swiss Communist Party at its First Congress on September 5—6, 1964 joined in Peking’s denunciation of the Yugoslav regime, saying “The workers self-government economy of the Tito clique is a capitalism of the State of a peculiar nature.” It also declared that a recent agreement between the United States and the USSR “is an ignoble fraud.”[491]

The KPS continued to be critical of the Chinese and apparently had severe reservations about the Great Cultural Revolution. In August 1965, L’Entincelle carried an attack “on romantics with pro-Chinese leanings, sectarians and intellectuals,” and did not at the same time attack “Soviet revisionists.”[492]

The KPS apparently disappeared because in 1975 a new party with that name was established, by a merger of a group that had split from the Communist Party of Switzerland (Marxist-Leninist) and an originally pro-Trotskyist group in Zurich. Its leader was Harald Fritschi and its central organ was Rote Fahne, published in Zurich.[493]

The Communist Party of Switzerland (Marxist-Leninist) was established in 1970 by a Maoist group that broke away from the original KPS. They first formed the Organization of Communists of Switzerland (Marxist-Leninist), which had its principal base in the canton of Lausanne.[494]

In 1972 a congress of the Organization of Communists of Switzerland (M-L) established the Communist Party of Switzerland (Marxist-Leninist (PCS-ML). It proclaimed itself to be “governed by Marxism-Leninism and the philosophy of Mao Tse-tung.” The congress declared that the establishment of the party was “a new and decisive phase in the struggle to have the proletariat of Switzerland gain power, to have the dictatorship of the proletariat replace the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and to abolish the exploitation and oppression of the people.” The new party had a monthly publication Octubre.[495]

In April 1973 Octubre, which was being published in German, French and Italian, was largely dedicated to the commemoration of Stalin. Its principle article was entitled “For the twentieth anniversary of J. V. Stalin’s death. Stalin Lives!”[496]

The KPS (M-L) feuded with the new KPS, attacking it as being composed of “neo-Trotskyists and anti-communist parasites.” The KPS, in turn, labeled the KPS (M-L) “useless agitators and petty-bourgeois chauvinists.”[497]

The KPS (M-L) held its Second Congress in December 1977, which adopted the party’s first formal party program. At the end of this congress, a communique was issued that proclaimed that the party program “demonstrates the progress of the party in the application of Marxism-Leninism to the situation and in the strategy and tactics of the revolutionary struggle for socialism and a red Switzerland.” It also said that the KPS (M-L) “considers the struggle against revisionism as its principal ideological task. … We see in the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the U.S.A., the principle enemies of our revolution.”[498]

A third Maoist group was established in 1979. This was the Swiss Communist Organization (SKO), formed by a fusion of local groups in Zurich and Basel and in the French-speaking regions. Its Chairman was Jurg Stocklin.

All three of the Swiss Maoist organizations supported the Chinese leadership after the death of Mao. They all endorsed the Three Worlds Theory and the KSP (M-L) had a delegation in China in June 1978.[499]

Eric Waldman noted in 1987 that “Other communist organizations, such as the Communist Party of Switzerland Marxist-Leninist … and the Communist Organization Labor Party, have shown no signs of activity during 1986.”[500]

Turkish Maoism

Maoism in Turkey originated within the ranks of the Dev Gene, or Federation of Revolutionary Youth, established in the early 1960s. The Dev Gene was reported to have “All sorts of currents and groups … represented—Marxists, anarchists, Maoists, and Leninists.”[501]

By the early 1970s, the Maoists had formed the Workers and Peasants Party. In November 1974, sixteen of its leaders were reported as being arrested by the Turkish police. At about the same time, the pro-Moscow Communist Party of Turkey announced as one of its objectives “to wage continuous struggle against the Maoists.”[502]