More serious were the expulsions of 1969—1970. In November 1969, the PLP decided to “reorganize” its leadership. As a consequence, Jared Israel, PLP Boston organizer; Jake Rosen, New York City Organizer; and William Epton, Vice Chairman of the PLP and head of its Harlem branch, were removed from the eight-member National Committee. They were subsequently expelled from the party. Later, Juan and Helena Farinas, editors of Desafio, were expelled also, and Charles Rosen was forced to resign. So was Steve Martinot, one of the leading figures in the Party since its inception. The Farinas’ successor as editor of Desafio, Jay Agostini, submitted his resignation from that post in mid-1970 and was promptly expelled from the Party.
There is no evidence available concerning the points of disagreement that most of these people had with the rest of the PLP leadership. However, it is known that Epton had serious criticisms of the Party’s position on Black Nationalism.[38]
PLP Support for China
Until 1971, the Progressive Labor Party strongly supported the Chinese in their quarrel with the CPSU and the Soviet regime. A typical expression of this support appeared in “Road to Revolution—II,” a document adopted by the National Committee of the PLP in December 1966. The burden of this 26-page document was an attack on “revisionism” within International Communism. Most sections attacked the Soviet Union, including one subtitled, “The Soviet Revisionists Have Already Restored Capitalism in the Soviet Union,” and another entitled “Soviet ‘Aid’ Is a Trojan Horse Used by Imperialism.”
Another part of the National Committee’s document proclaimed that “Success for China’s Cultural Revolution Is a Defeat for Imperialism.” It said that “The Chinese communists are making a thorough-going effort to transform the thinking and develop the ideology of hundreds of millions of people. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, led by Mao Tse-tung, the Chinese people are demonstrating that people determine the course of history.”[39]
The document also claimed that “the current struggle against modern revisionism led by the Communist Party of China, has raised Marxist thought to new heights. The thought of Mao Tse-tung is proving invaluable to revolutionaries all over the world. In this debate revisionism is being challenged to a degree that it was never challenged before. A far more fundamental approach is being taken by millions, not just a few. And backing up this titanic struggle is the powerful Chinese Communist Party which gives the revolutionary government a courageous example.”[40]
On various occasions the PLP sent messages of support to the Chinese leadership. Thus, at the time of border conflicts between Chinese and Soviet troops in 1969, the PLP wrote a letter to Mao Tse-tung and Lin Pao [sic] that began, The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) vigorously condemns Soviet aggression against China. U.S.-Soviet collusion is trying to encircle and smash Socialist China.”[41]
A year and a half later, on the occasion of the twenty-first anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the PLP again wrote Mao and Lin Piao (this time spelled correctly). It noted that “The great Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the Chinese people’s revolution are the two historic milestones in the struggle to smash imperialist exploitation and oppression and to establish a new world of socialism. Marxist-Leninists throughout the world and in the U.S. study the thoughts of the great leaders of these revolutions, V. I. Lenin and Mao Tse-tung, to grasp their revolutionary essence in order to guide and develop further the world revolution.”[42]
The PLP Break with the Chinese
In spite of their eulogies for “Mao Tse-tung Thought,” the Progressive Labor Party broke with the source of that “thought” over President Richard Nixon’s trip to China early in 1972 and the rapprochement between the Chinese regime and the United States that it reflected. The PLP’s denunciations of the Chinese leaders become as strident as those they were accustomed to direct toward the leaders of the Soviet party and state.
Topical of the PLP’s repudiation of Mao and the Chinese leadership was an article entitled “Progressive Labor Party says: Nixon-Mao Plot Hurts U.S. & Chinese Workers,” which appeared in March 1972. It said that “A few short years ago, Mao, Chou & Co. were correctly saying that Nixon was ‘worse than Hitler,’ while U.S. bosses called Mao a ‘tyrant.’ Now they are falling into each other’s arms.”
The article continued, “The Chinese opportunists have given Nixon a grandiose welcome as a gauge of the ‘good faith’ they now intend to show toward U.S. imperialism. … They would justify their present actions in this way: ‘The U.S. and Soviet imperialists are our biggest enemies, along with Japan. The Soviets are the worst, because they have an enormous border with us, and because their economic and political power is growing rapidly. U.S. imperialism is weakening internationally in relation to its chief competitors, especially Japan. We have a good opportunity to split the enemy camp by allying with our secondary enemy, the U.S., against our main enemies, the Soviets and Japanese.’”
But PLP didn’t accept this reasoning. It wrote that “In terms of ‘pure’ logic, this argument has a lot going for it—but in class terms, it makes sense only from the point of view of power politics and nationalism—in other words, from a boss’s point of view. Historically, this type of maneuvering has never brought anything but defeat to the working class.”
The PLP drew a parallel between the Mao-Nixon rapprochement and Chinese Communist policy during World War II. The article said that “In China during the 1940s, the same policy the Chinese Communist Party is now applying to U.S. imperialism was applied by Mao to the nationalist bosses led by Chiang Kai-shek. The reasoning; since Japanese imperialists were the ‘main enemy,’ Chiang could be an ally against them. This policy was called New Democracy. It led to deals with ‘patriotic’ landlords, businessmen and bankers and to the creation of a new ‘red’ ruling class that called itself ‘socialist’ but that led the Chinese workers and peasants right back to the mire of capitalist oppression soon after the revolution. Millions in China fought to get rid of this ‘red’ ruling class during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.”
The article continued, “China’s ‘red’ bosses are still in power and are making a deal with U.S. bosses. This is a defeat for workers, oppressed people and revolutionaries around the world. Nothing can come from such a deal except more profits for the bosses and more exploitation for the people. … Workers in the U.S., China and everywhere need revolution. No deal between bosses, no betrayal, no temporary defeat can stop the international working class from fighting for and winning socialism.”[43]
Clearly, from 1972 on, the Progressive Labor Party can no longer be counted as part of International Maoism. After that date, they no longer constitute a part of that schism in the world Communist movement.
U.S. Maoists Originating in the New Left of the 1960s
After the repudiation of Maoism by the Progressive Labor Party, Maoism in the United States was represented by a group of parties which had their origin principally in the New Left of the 1960s. They emerged from the splintering of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), as well as from the Black Nationalists, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and other groups that had constituted the New Left. However, these self-proclaimed Maoists fought extensively among themselves and tended to take different sides as Chinese policies evolved and changed during the 1970s.