Remember people are always telling stories. In conversations we recount what has happened at work, to friends, something that was in the news, idle gossip, and the car that cut us up. In the details of the lives we speak of a wide arching narrative is created full of colour, incidents and values. It is a way of understanding what is going on around us, and in that narrative we can place ourselves. So telling stories is an important social and personal function in our lives. And we listen to others stories. Those multitudes of stories weave into creating a wider world, and influencing those narratives affects how individuals response to the world around them as we communicate ideas and values in the cumulative tales we tell. You can plant seeds or reinforce perceptions in the words you use and in the tales you choose to tell.
Murky allegations abound, and it is not unknown for British intelligence to use agents of influence to undermine the republican movement. The afterlife of this activity is seen in memoirs and accounts of the war in Ireland, especially those around the covert war as discussed in previous postings.
Bleedin’ obvious, you might say and still when you see it in action: the cynical manipulation attempted in a single story, it blares out at you and a tried, almost complacent response of “fake news” seems an inadequate response as the status quo propaganda rolls on.
Internet postings feed speculation of motives and cause, raising charges of little piece of history rewriting with conspiracy theories thriving about individuals republican volunteers working for Special Branch and British military intelligence providing information targeting the organisation and its members.
Adding to this litany is the regurgitation of claims that Gerry Adams was an MI5 informer raised in Undercover War: Britain’s Special Forces and Their Battle Against the IRA, by Harry McCallion, (John Blake 2020) basing his astonishing claim on a letter from Irish State papers made public in 2017. The ex-SAS solider and RUC officer claims about three months after the Loughgall operation, a rumour about Mr Adams was passed on to the Department of Foreign Affairs by Fr Denis Faul. He learnt that a notion doing the rounds was that “the IRA team were set up by Gerry Adams himself”.
In May 1987 eight IRA volunteers died in an ambush at Loughgall – one estimate suggested 1200 rounds were fired – as they attempted to bomb an empty RUC barracks in the Co Armagh village. British Army special forces were lying in wait and killed them all, along with innocent bystander Anthony Hughes and his brother was badly wounded.
The eight-man IRA unit killed Clockwise from top left: Gerard O’Callaghan, Antony Gormley, James Lynagh, Eugene Kelly, Declan Arthurs, Patrick McKerney, Seamus Donnelly and Patrick Kelly. Photograph: PressAssociation
The Irish Times reported that: “Fr Faul, a school teacher and chaplain in Long Kesh prison who died in 2006, said the rumour was that two of the gang – Jim Lynagh, a councillor in Monaghan, and McKearney – “had threatened to execute Adams shortly before the Loughgall event”. It was being claimed that Lynagh and McKearney “disliked Adams’ political policy” and that they were leaning towards Republican Sinn Féin.”
Fr Faul had fallen out badly with the republican leadership during the 1981 IRA hunger strikes when Faul persuaded families to seek medical intervention. He believed that Gerry Adams had connived at the death of comrades concluding, that a peaceful settlement of the protest had been sabotaged by Adams and his allies for political advantage. That he was not alone in believing so, does not make it true but demonstrates the persistence of rumour and speculation based on circumstances, coincident and suspicions rather than correlating evidence.[i] So repeating some rumour he had heard, passing gossip as political information to the Irish government, is not surprising. So the theory put forward by Fauls was based on what other than groundless speculation?
The construction of this history in the shadows relies upon those small details and connections that are seized upon to bolster a predetermined conclusion. The peddling of third hand unverifiable accusations – rather like including a factious pig story in David Cameron’s biography – adds colour and talking point and leaves the reader to draw their own conclusion. Any narrative is constructed so that it makes sense, and pieces are made to fit the over-arching storyline, hence the contribution to the conspiracy theory of the peace process that the British intelligence services and successive governments might have helped remove those IRA men impeding Adams and used “agents of influence” to steer republicans towards politics. That a mutually beneficial collusion worked both ways.
Mr McCallion, who did several tours of Northern Ireland with various specialist military units before spending six years in the RUC, admits he wanted Adams “dead”.
“This wasn’t a sudden urge. I was a veteran with seven tours of Northern Ireland under my belt and I’d given the matter some thought,” he confesses. “One night in the mess bar, drinking with a serving officer from MI5, I was loudly voicing my opinion. Looking back, I must have sounded naïve and spectacularly ill-informed, but I truly believed the best way to stop the terrorists was to target the high command. Like I said, kill Gerry Adams. “The somewhat inebriated MI5 officer’s response was surprising: ‘No. He’s one of ours.’ I cannot confirm whether this was true, or whether it had its origins in the kind of drunken bravado that leads to all sorts of tall tales in the mess. “However, the look of shock on the officer’s face after the words came out, and his refusal to continue the conversation, were suggestive, as was the fact that he was unwilling ever to speak with me again outside a formal setting. “I’ve never forgotten that night in the mess. Looking back from today’s perspective, many of the most secret and dangerous operations undertaken by British forces in the province, and their outcomes, make more sense to me if the British security services truly did have an informer right at the top of the Republican movement.”[ii]
Put away the highlighter – not one actionable fact or piece of evidence from a bar room chat.
More than one commentator offer equally credible explanations, including mistakes made by the IRA team as well as routine British surveillance or the activities of informers unconnected to the republican leadership. But in East Tyrone republican circles, the suspicion that the removal of the Loughgall unit was not a chance event and was somehow connected to subsequent political developments, has persisted. And it is in others interests to stoke such suspicions and maintain a continuing covert war on how the past is perceived.
Fr. Dennis Faul, an Irish Catholic priest doctrinally orthodox and socially conservative had spoken out and campaigned against the injustice against Catholics in Northern Ireland.
“At our own expense we are reporting the crimes that go unreported, because they are committed by the British Army and the RUC. The crimes of the Provisionals and Officials and IRSP are well publicised; but I have noted over the last four years that the only occasions that my remarks are publicised by BBC UTV and papers like the Belfast Telegraph are when I condemn these republican groups for atrocities. I have done this very frequently; not all my condemnations are publicised by the same public media”[iii]
For over thirty years, from 1971, Father Raymond Murray and Fr Denis Faul produced approximately 150 books, leaflets, pamphlets and other material highlighting the abuse by the British state of emergency laws in the North of Ireland; harassment and intimidation of civilians; injuries and deaths caused by rubber and plastic bullets; collusion between British security forces, British intelligence and loyalists paramilitaries; unjust killings and murders by the security forces; excessive punishments and degrading strip searching in prison; the political, legal and medical systems that upheld these injustices; and the media that failed to investigate and report on them – abuses ignored by all but a handful of individuals and civil rights organisations.
Fr. Faul died in 2006. As befitting for a former Chaplain in Long Kesh for 20 years, former hunger strikers and prisoners, Republicans and senior members of Sinn Féin attended his funeral. Not all were as complimentary of the man as in his obituary in The Irish Independent[iv] called “sexist and offensively sectarian”, by former Irish president Mary McAleese, calling him “cantankerous and caustic”. [v]
The irony was that Fr Faul was himself smeared as a ‘Provo Priest,’ and following his death Gerry Adams said Irish Republicans had serious difficulties with him: Faul’s continued condemnation of violence from all sides provoked the anger of both loyalists and Republican paramilitaries.
Faul had a role in the wider struggle as noted by Anne McHardy in The Guardian, “through the 1970s and 80s, he was pivotal as a conduit to the Provisional IRA. He was vital in providing information to both the Dublin government and the Catholic hierarchy during the tenure of Cardinal Tomas O’Fiaich. After internment was introduced in Northern Ireland in 1971, Faul gave the early warnings of the inadequacies of British army intelligence. For the British, his role was crucial in ending the 1981 IRA hunger strike (though after he persuaded families to take prisoners off the hunger strike, some Maze inmates refused to take mass from him). “ [vi]
================================================================From released Irish state papers we know that opinions and judgements were voluntarily passed by many prominent Catholics in the north to inform the Department of Foreign Affairs of the situation in the north. The Irish Times reports gives a flavour of the quality of intelligence supplied.
Leader of the SDLP John Hume provided this colourful description of the Ulster Defence Regiment: “a group of Rangers supporters put in uniforms, supplied with weapons and given the job of policing the area where Celtic supporters live.” The description was contained in a September 1985 note prepared by Irish official Daithí Ó Ceallaigh, who Mr Hume had briefed on his meeting with then Northern Secretary Tom King. While Denis Faul and Raymond Murray are recorded as describing the INLA as ‘a bunch of lunatics’[vii]
Other accusations have arisen –
Former colleagues who accuse Adams of having ordered the death of Jean McConville are said to be driven by hostility to the peace process, by a conviction that he personally sold out the republican struggle as a minority split saw the Good Friday agreement as a betrayal of their intransigent ideology of republicanism.
There were claims by Martin Ingram, aka ex Int Corps SSgt Ian Hurst, that Martin McGuinness had been controlled by MI6 for at least two decades. The Sunday Times repeated the baseless accusation with a twist in that a retired RUC special branch officer believes McGuinness was the MI5 agent code-named “Fisherman”, though others maintain that this agent may have been a person close to McGuinness. By Hurst’s own account, the accusation was based on information provided to him by a serving PSNI Special Branch officer. There is little to suggest the information is authentic, and there are good reasons to question the motives of Special Branch officers, who have long been accused of an anti-agreement agenda, and wishing to cause dissention and mistrust within the republican community. The suggestion in McCallion’s latest addition to covert war memoirs repeats blogosphere postings that suggests: “those who opposed Adams and McGuinness often found themselves in the crosshairs of the British Army — so frequently, in fact, that the trend seems more than a coincidence.”
Really? Both public leaders of the resistance against British rule working with the British securocrats? Implausible and unverifiable – this is the problem: what can be done to put a stake into the heart of such zombie accusations?
When McCallion adds: “It seems quite coincidental that so much of this intelligence happened to be directed against figures in the PIRA who had the potential to threaten Adams’ path towards a settlement”, he is reading from the counter insurgency playbook to disrupt and discredit.
His publicist state McCallion writes with the unique authority of a soldier who has served 7 tours in Northern Ireland with 2 Para, passed 14 Intelligence Company selection, served 6 years in the SAS (including 2 tours in the Anti-Terrorism Team) and 6 years in the RUC.
The commercial appeal of such self-publicised insider’s account is well-recognised in the publishing world however they are generally characterised by their story-telling, engagements, mobile gunfight and operational detail than reasoned referenced reconstruction. McCallion’s account received wider circulation when sensationally serialised in the Daily Mail in August 2020.
Was Gerry Adams an MI5 informer? In his dramatic new book, HARRY MCCALLION tells how senior IRA men died in Army ambushes… after mysterious tip-offs
The identity of the PIRA source who revealed ambush plans remains unknown
But a newly-published letter claims that Republicans believed it could be Adams
Adams thought military victory against the British was impossible by the late 70s
Sinn Fein described the theory in Mccallion’s new book as being ‘utter nonsense’
His previous ‘SAS memoir’ Killing Zone (Bloomsbury Publishing 1996) was noted for its unflinchingly honest portrayal of the brutality of life in the Special Forces and its refusal to fetishise or glamourise the business of killing. The mystique about well-rehearsed killing units that comprise the special operation units has been a feature of the retelling of the war in Ireland. It has a counterpart in guerrilla and insurgency culture that elevates the tactic beyond its utilitarian function in revolutionary struggle.
While far from a comprehensive account of the military undercover operations in Ireland from the British perspective, Undercover War: Britain’s Special Forces and Their Battle Against The IRA covers the Military Reaction Force (MRF), “a unit that was so badly thought out, organised, and trained that it degenerated into what can only be called a death squad.” The deployment of the SAS and the creation and training of 14 Intelligence Company follow in his narrative. There are familiar episodes and names like Captain Robert Nairac and assassination of Bernadette Devlin to anyone well-read in the genre. The political deception of the British government illustrated in his account of the ‘debadging’ of half an SAS Squadron so that the men can be deployed to Northern Ireland without breaking a government promise that no Special Forces soldiers would serve in the province. He includes an insider’s account of the mistakes that led to the embarrassing arrest of 8 SAS soldiers by the Irish Gardaí. And in a denial of all their training, McCallion refutation of the claim that the SAS operated a ‘shoot to kill’ policy treads a familiar line of justification. He sticks to the British version of the turning point in during the early 1980s at which the greater emphasis on the mass political struggle following the 1981 Hunger strike, the Republican leadership accepts that a military victory was no longer possible. And would you believe an insider’s account of the final SAS action of the covert war, the capture of an IRA sniper cell who are subdued in a traditional fist-fight when the SAS team tasked to neutralise them are ordered not to shoot anyone for fear of jeopardising the Peace Process?
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The literature of deceit, such memoirs and accounts are a difficult genre to interpret, for instance, take Willie Carlin’s Thatcher’s Spy: My Life as an MI5 agent inside Sinn Féin (Merrion Press, 2019). How do you read this? Entertainment, a potential film script? Another over-blown partial account of the covert war? Spies, after all, survive by deception, and their autobiographies are classic vehicles for propaganda. Normal fact checking is problematic when it is interpretations and perceptions offered as evidence. One can check the claims of such books against the other available corroboration, but are so often less reliable on the wider political agendas at work even when seemingly credible about their own experience as an agent, reproducing stories full of second hand opinion and suspicions without evidence.
Totally understandable given the ravages inflicted by the Covid global pandemic, the launch of a new global alliance, the Anti-Imperialist Anti-Fascist United Front (AIAFUF), or simply United Front, was suspended in an announcement from the ILPS in June 2020. The launch of the organisation “will probably take place in early 2021”. The initial registration period for the Front be extended and international formations have until January 31, 2021.
Whereas other initiatives are directed to co-thinkers in the world communist movement, this an initiative of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) and the International Coordination of Revolutionary Parties and Organizations (ICOR) and allies, incorporates a wide range of forces, drawing on non-party affiliated associations including individual membership for the party-less militant, in a united front political association.
Drawing upon their own experiences in their respective organisations, the structure in becoming envisaged is that the United Front shall be a movement of allied organizations without democratic centralism and a costly and expensive apparatus, so not a new Comintern-type arrangement. However a serious engagement in the international project of communication, co-operation and co-ordination.
In her statement of the 10th anniversary of ICOR, the ICOR Main Coordinator Monika Gärtner-Engel attributes some of the sustainability and growth of the co-operation and co-ordination of some 60 ICOR member organisations worldwide to fundamental principles;
“In the face of many remaining differences among the revolutionaries of the world, common organization on the basis of ideological-political core questions: revolutionary overcoming of the capitalist/imperialist system; perspective of socialism/communism; necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat; leading role of the working class; a clear dividing line to revisionism, anarchism and Trotskyism.” ICOR, 6 October 2020
[Speaking at the unveiling of the first Lenin statue in West Germany in June, Gabi Fechtner nee Gärtner-Engel, leader of the MLPD since April 2017, stated, “To make it clear: I am neither a Stalinist nor a Maoist – the same goes for the entire MLPD. But we defend the achievements of socialism – and also the representatives of socialism, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao.”
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Having posted before that the internet is awash with initiatives to rally to the red flag of revolutionary communism, it is no surprise that there are wide divergences within the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist tendencies from analysis to political terminology that cleaves distinct approaches for those self-identified as Maoist.
The initiative of AIAFUF differs from the distinct if parallel ideological offensive by a handful of organizations make up of a very small fraction of self-identifying Maoists worldwide to try to impose a new idealistic definition of Maoism on all parties fighting for communism in the world. This camp led by the Communist Party of Brazil (Red Fraction) [PCB) regards the AIF as an eclectic front with revisionism and opportunism. They see “the problem in the international communist movement is not primarily related to the fact that Maoism is not formally recognized, but rather to the way some conceive it”.
Simply put: Chairman Gonzalo has hoist higher the flag of Maoism and if that contribution – “the universal validity contributions of the Gonzalo Thought” – is not acknowledged, absolved and actioned, then you are not a Maoist. That definition excludes the Maoist organizations leading the most advanced revolutionary movements today, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and the Communist Party of the Philippines. Even political opponents will argue that:
“Currently there are four people’s wars that exist today, in Peru, in Turkey, in India and in the Philippines. They are the axis in the proletarian world revolution. In the international communist movement, the red banner for uniting the movement under Maoism and people’s war is being raised.”
Establishing, as demonstrated by the various historical attempts by international Trotskyism, a small network of international alliances with organizations and groups does not reproduce the influence or effect of the original Comintern. The failure to seriously address the only international Maoist movement that has existed to date, and explain the experience of the RIM, simply in terms of the revisionist positions developed by Avakian and betrayal of the Nepalese revolution, hampers the difficulties in restructuring a supportive internationalist structure through an ideological struggle over the definition of Maoism on the basis that it will give a new impetus to the global proletarian revolution.
The Maoist road grouping suggests, “CoRIM became arrogant and with its subjective evaluations and sectarian attitude created obstacles and harms to the International Maoist movement. It is important that a summation of its experiences will include a review of its ideological, political positions in its Declaration of foundation.” (emphasis added)
The paused attempt to achieve a large unified international conference of all the MLM Parties and Organization saw a joint proposal dated last April, signed by the Committee for Building the Maoist Communist Party, Galicia, Spanish State, Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan, Communist Worker Union (MLM) – Colombia and the Maoist Communist Party – Italy to act as the promotors to convene the Unified International Conference with bilateral and multilateral meetings. The Committee proposed is not a new International Organization neither the Organising Committee of the International Conference but an attempt to move the process forward amidst the pandemic.
So far engagement in a disembodied ideological struggle has strengthen the self-isolation of currents within “global Maoism” from each other, and brought out the sectarian rhetoric from the prominent to the marginal:
“Defend Marxism-Leninism-Maoism Against Gonzaloite Revisionism!” was the position advanced in April 2020 from the American Organizing Committee for a Maoist Communist Party (MCP-OC). It argued “the defeated people’s war in Peru represented the creative application of MLM to the Peruvian conditions; this alone does not constitute a new ‘Thought,’ any more than the petulant hooliganism of our comrades in Austin might be called ‘Com. Dallas Thought’!”
The consequences may well prove correct Canadian critics of all the “participant” in this internationalist architectural drive; they comment that,
“recent events have confirmed that not only are the idealistic and the true Maoists not part of the same movement, but that this scenario will never happen. Indeed, the political options defended on both sides are so divergent that they are unassimilable to each other.” [Maoism as in itself: against the idealism of the “mainly Maoist” current. Iskra January 26, 2020]
However these critics are unlikely to be invited by any of the proposed international conferences as, by definition, they exclude themselves in their quirky argumentation that
“the Chinese cultural revolution, although a highly positive experience and one with fundamental lessons, has a lesser importance that the experience of more than twenty years of armed struggle and united front preceding the seizure of power in 1949. We say that it is mainly – if not almost entirely – in the experience of the prolonged people’s war in China that Maoism finds its material origin, and only in a secondary way in the cultural revolution.”
This, a marginal position, reverses the roots of Maoists for the last half century and predates (and negates) consideration of the cultural revolution as the greatest and most original contribution of Mao to the development of Marxism-Leninism in order to combat modern revisionism, prevent the restoration of capitalism and consolidate socialism. It is a position that dismisses the struggles over Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, Maoism and continuity and rupture that has drawn the contours of 21st Century Maoism.
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The first known use of Maoism was in 1950 according to Merriam-Webster.
Posted on October 11, 2020 http://www.revolutionarypraxis.org/?p=2909
Obituary: Ross Longhurst 1941-2020
It is with great regret that we heard our comrade Ross Longhurst (aka Harry Powell) had passed away on 28th September 2020. Ross was a dedicated Communist and upholding proletarian internationalism when many others discarded it in favour of tailing nationalism of all kinds. Ross remained politically active until the last weeks of his life.
Ross was born in Hastings, Sussex in 1941. In 1959 he moved to London, living in Streatham where he was a member of the Streatham Hill ward Labour Party and was also active in anti colonial and anti racism campaigns and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. This was Ross’ first encounter with “Marxism” which was presented in the form of Gerry Healy who was the ward secretary of his Labour Party branch in Streatham and the Trotskyite Socialist Labour League (SLL) that he led. The antics of Healy and the SLL put Ross off this caricature of Marxism and left him with a firm opposition to Trotskyism. He would later have a proper introduction to genuine Marxism Leninism in his involvement in the movement against the imperialist war against Vietnam.
Ross worked at the time in a type face setting factory in Merton. Later he returned to Hastings and worked as a labourer on the building of Dungeness A atomic power station. By this time he was disillusioned with reformist Labourite politics and left the Party and would oppose reformism for the rest of his life. Ross got a place at the London School of Economics in the mid sixties and studied Sociology. He became involved in the student occupations and the campaigns against the Vietnam War. This experience led Ross to understand that Marxism Leninism and its further development by Mao Zedong was the only revolutionary science capable of transforming society towards Communism. This was the time of the Cultural Revolution in China one of the greatest revolutionary movements in history where the masses grasped communist ideology and attempted to take power away from the emerging capitalist class in Socialist China and move towards communist relations of production. This inspired progressives around the world but compared to France, Italy, Scandinavia and Germany had less impact on leftists in Britain which remained under the influence of Labourism, revisionism and Trotskyism. Ross therefore was among those who swam against the tide. He once wrote on the revolutionary nature of Maoism in comparison to the Trots and revisionists:
“…one important reason I became attracted to the Maoist stream of Marxism was the positive attitude it took towards oppressed and exploited people. This contrasted with the revisionist and Trotskyist variants of Marxism which viewed workers and peasants as deserving but essentially incapable by themselves of taking effective action to defend and advance their interests. According to these types of Marxists it is only the conscious Marxist revolutionaries who have the knowledge and insights necessary to guide the masses into doing what is good for them…Maoism was different because it conceived of the masses as potentially most revolutionary. ”
While being active in various campaigns and working with comrades of other anti revisionist Marxist Leninist groups, Ross did not join any of them until 1974 when he became a member of the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist Leninist) led by trade union official Reg Birch which he described as “the best of a bad bunch”. Ross found many of the other groups suffering from idealism especially in the manifestation of a religious outlook and style. The CPB (M L) appeared the most materialist in outlook. At this time Ross was working in education as a lecturer in Sociology in Liverpool and then Nottingham.
In 1976 Ross spoke out at the CPB (M L) congress against the Parties political trajectory into nationalism and economism. The Nottingham branch left and formed the Nottingham Communist Group (NCG). This group developed theoretical defence of revolutionary communism against the new manifestations of revisionism such as the ‘Theory of the Three Worlds’ and upholding the Cultural Revolution and the necessity of violent revolution to bring about the proletarian state.
The NCG attended the founding conference of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) in 1984. The NCG and Stockport Communist Group would later merge into the Revolutionary Internationalist Contingent in Britain, Ross would be a leading member and while others dropped out over the years Ross was consistent in political activity and upholding Maoism, carrying out solidarity work for the Peoples Wars in Peru and Nepal when many British leftists ignored them or simply didn’t want to know about real revolutions. He travelled to Nepal in 2009 to observe for himself the struggles in Nepal meeting members of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre).
Ross was a founder member of Revolutionary Praxis after the collapse of the RIC. He helped organise educational studies in Marxism and did much street activity including book sales to propagate communism. Although he was painfully aware that we are currently in very difficult times in regard to the dominance of bourgeois ideology in imperialist countries, he did not give up as many of his contemporaries did and remained a stalwart. He was also consistent in his refusal to capitulate to the tailing of nationalism and reformism as so many on the left have done especially when Corbyn became leader of the Labour Party. He also believed that to articulate a political point or protest you had to be bold. During the Iraq War he and another comrade went to Wootten Bassett. Alone they protested against and called out the crimes of British imperialism against the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan during one of the macabre imperialist publicity exercises of repatriating dead British soldiers by parading the coffins through the town. This protest put them in serious danger of attack by zealous right wing thugs and onlookers but he was not deterred.
Ross would often try to set an example hoping to encourage other leftists to undertake more direct actions, rarely did they follow though which earned them his rightful contempt. Ross’ last major act of defiance at the age of 72 was to withhold payment of council tax in protest at austerity cuts implemented by the local city council, again he was the only one in his local anti cuts campaign to take this stand which led him to court and a month long prison sentence. In prison he found much support his action and gave advice to other prisoners. He found many had taken up criminal activities such as drug dealing to support their families and pay mortgages as their wages were too low to survive on.
Eventually he left the local campaigns around nuclear disarmament, the health service and anti cuts because of the pacifism and timidity of the other campaigners. Throughout his life under the name Harry Powell he wrote prolifically on revolutionary theory of Marxism Leninism Maoism and current world events. He never stopped emphasising that communists must listen and rely on the masses and not to take an elitist attitude towards them. During elections he would campaign against voting and expose the false nature of capitalist democracy. He would hold Revolutionary Praxis campaign stalls in run down areas of Nottingham which other leftist groups avoided. He continued until August of this year to hold stalls with communist literature and propaganda from Revolutionary Praxis at local Black Lives Matter protests and anti fascist protests. As he would often say “on with the struggle”.
Another brick in the wall from the supporters of Gonzalo Thought in the battle for the unity of the MLM communist movement as the Communist Party of Ecuador-Red Sun published a polemical piece on September 16, 2020 entitled, SOME COMMENTS ON THE DOCUMENT “ON MAOISM ITSELF” FROM THE RCP OF CANADA.
It was reproduced on the Spanish language Marxist-Leninist-Maoist blog, RED DAZIBAO .
Some time ago the comrades of the RCP of Canada published a document “ON MAOISM ITSELF” launching a severe and subjective criticism of the Communist Party of Brazil Red Fraction [PCB-FR] and other parties which it vaguely branded as its “satellites”.
In the first instance, we think that the document, due to its content, support and objective, did not deserve to be refuted because it contributes little or nothing in objective terms to the ideology; However, with the idea that the pronouncements do not “remain in the air” and generate confusion, with a certain imbalance in time we allowed ourselves to issue a response to try to clarify some errors and disagreements of the comrades.
It is important to point out (self-critically) that we know very little about the comrades of the RCP of Canada; therefore, we do not have the necessary elements and political arsenal to be able to analyze their future, work, struggle; but rather focus on his document and based on it, try to argue -without hasty and adventurous academic pretensions- some responses and observations from a unilateral position of the Communist Party of Ecuador Sol-Rojo.
The comrades of the RCP of Canada published a document entitled: MAOISM AS ITSELF: AGAINST THE IDEALISM OF THE “MAINLY MAOIST” CURRENT, and the virulent attack on the PCB-FR and other parties that uphold the Marxist thesis is still worrying. Leninism-Maoism, mainly Maoism, and that we recognize the universal contributions of Gonzalo Thought.
Something that draws the attention of this extensive, dispersed, subjective and eclectic document is the forcefulness with which they assert certain information:
“Currently a small group of organizations active in a few countries”; “Some satellite groups in Latin America”; “Handful of organizations constitute a very small, even insignificant fraction, whose actual practice is limited”; “The PCB (FR) and its supporters”, and thus a series of terms that in addition to showing a certain contempt for this group, falls into the dangerous error of underestimating us; expressions that are repeated repeatedly throughout the text and that account for the little or no seriousness of these comrades as a result of either the serious ignorance they have of the parties in the process of construction or reconstitution that make up an important current within the MCI, as well as the strange and equivocal handling of the revolutionary theory of the proletariat.
If the PCR starts from a quantitative analysis, it would be good to ask how much does the ideological rise of communist parties in Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, the United States, Germany, Austria, France, Ireland and the United States represent for Canadian comrades? others who are joining this red line with an important impact on the ICM ?, apparently little or nothing, without considering that Latin America has become a land of storms, of struggle, and that in Europe the awakening of the class and the masses is transcendental in the ultimate aims of the international proletariat: communism.
But let’s see, if to the quantitative aspect we add a qualitative assessment of the work and struggle of the PCB-FR “orbit” in the ICM, what does the fact that this group strengthens the international proletariat’s struggle to crush in a determined way to revisionism, opportunism and centrism?; What does it represent for the RCP of Canada that this group has had as a transversal axis supporting and defending the people’s wars carried out by the international proletariat in various countries of the world; support from the perspective of proletarian internationalism organizations, parties, whether constituted or in reconstitution processes; sustain and develop the two-line struggle, in addition to applying, developing and defending Gonzalo Thought as a dialectical leap of MLM, to the revolutionary theory and practice of the international proletariat? It is obvious that nothing, and what is more, he rants at a gallop, he does not apply a two-line struggle but rather loses his strange fixation on the comrades of Brazil and to some extent on the rest of the small, precarious and dysfunctional parties that support him.
The comrades are unaware of the conditions in which this red line was generated within the ICM. With their precipitations and infancies they threaten a process that has only been able to be lifted after a strong ideological struggle as corresponds to the historical tradition of those who believe that unity in ideology is forged in criticism-self-criticism-unity; endorsed in countless meetings held in various countries, even defying the threat of reaction; historical events in which delegations of parties and organizations have also participated, with which there have been serious disagreements within the framework of the necessary and unavoidable two-line struggle.
The ideological struggle with the comrades of the UOC or GCR of Colombia (spearhead of Avakianism in the region) has not been alien to us; at certain times with comrades from Italy, France, Spain, Panama or Afghanistan; In fact, within the collective we have also had many and deep disagreements where the criterion of unity has prevailed, without this referring to having avoided the ideological and political contradictions presented between us and we have ended up handling eclectic positions or becoming a shameless political and ideological submission .
It is important to point out that although it is true, the communists of Latin America recognize the achievements that the PCB (FR) has had at the levels of organization in order to assume the responsibility of undertaking the New Democracy revolution in Brazil at the service of the international proletariat ; the important impulse that has given him to fight to impose the red line within the ICM, we have never established a relationship with the comrades under the figure of the “father party”; In fact, throughout this journey it is important to remember that it was from the joint statement between the Revolutionary Front of the Bolivian People, MLM and the Communist Party of Ecuador-Red Sun issued on December 26, 2008, where it was alerted about the inexistence of a correct direction within the ICM before the bankruptcy of the RIM; Prachanda’s betrayal of the People’s War in Nepal or the need to combat the new scourge of the peoples, especially in Latin America of the so-called 21st century socialism; Declaration that established, -to some extent-, the starting point that coincided with the efforts that the PCB-FR was developing in the ideological struggle in the international arena, to generate the ideological and political discussion group on the problems that afflict the ICM , the World Proletarian Revolution and the struggle for a new and superior communist international.
Comrades, “there is no worse blind than the one who does not want to see”, in that sense we cannot refuse to recognize the efforts made by the PCB-FR, its correct leadership, leadership and militancy to sustain the ideological struggle and the unity of the international proletariat. ; the hard struggle made by the comrades of Peru to reorganize their leadership in the midst of the people’s war, confronting not only the armed enemy, but also the ROL and the winners of imperialism who permanently deny its development today. The very important leaps that the comrades of Chile have taken in the reconstitution of their Communist Party or those gigantic efforts of the comrades of Colombia that reconstitute their party in the midst of many difficulties, among others, a society plagued by armed revisionism. Impossible not to greet and approach the struggle that the communists are undertaking in Mexico where proposing the revolution is in itself an extremely courageous and stoic fact. Never underestimate the struggle of the comrades of Germany to sow a party where it did not exist in objective terms; not different in Austria, Ireland, in the bowels of Yankee imperialism, where US comrades, particularly in Austin, have put their levels of struggle and organization in tension; and thus, others who apparently do not want to be seen by you.
It is impossible not to recognize the constitution and reconstitution of communist parties of a new type that are emerging all over the world in the midst of the 2-line struggle, which is the only thing that at the end of the road will allow us to strengthen the ICM and create the conditions for a new international that inexorably It will be MARIST-LENINIST-MAOIST.
But not fed up with their myopia and ignorance, the comrades of Canada brand us as “insignificant” organizations. For them, our complex process of building the instruments for the revolution, which has had to confront and overcome many vicissitudes, represents nothing; in fact, even our errors of interpretation and application of the correct ideological line, a weakness that led us to experience a defeat that, without being definitive, cost us a high price in lives and, of course, political. Construction that also, faithful to our line and conception for applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Gonzalo Thought to the particularity of the country, has taken place by mobilizing the masses, and not necessarily in a peaceful way, but in a rebellious, belligerent, combative way, applying and developing revolutionary violence.
And it is that in Ecuador, the process of construction of the instruments for the revolution we have not undertaken “accumulating forces in cold”, as the PCR suggests; in silence, with its back to the requirements of the class and the people or the international proletariat. We have done it in the course of an active, combative militant practice, mobilizing masses and even carrying out acts of violence not only in the framework of treating the existing contradictions in the country, but also in support of the people’s wars that are being advanced in the world and other struggles of the international proletariat. We have done it not only by militarizing the Party but also by all its organizational instances at the level of generated organisms, penetrating each other and coming decisively closer to unleashing the people’s war. Obvious, The enemy’s response has been correlative to our armed proposal to demarcate all the camps with him and the old State: prisoners, kidnapped, tortured, dead, aspects that are not unrelated to what the comrades of Brazil have also had to live where they still the blood of Comrade Cleomar Rodríguez and many others shivers; or from Mexico, where the morning still awaits the return of Dr. Serna or the void left by the premature death of Luis Armando Fuentes by the enemy; the persecution to which comrades from Germany or Austin, USA are subjected. But no, for Canadian comrades we are insignificant and with limited practice, just like the rest of the parties that “orbit” in the PCB-FR and that have similar histories. In any case, it is important to point out that the Maoists of Ecuador and their Party are not followers of the PCB (FR) or any other organization; but they are followers of the correct ideological line, the one committed to sweeping away opportunism, revisionism and centrism in the ranks of the international proletariat.
Contrary to what the RCP has shown throughout its lengthy document, the PCE-SR’s style of work fully conforms to what Chairman Mao pointed out: “the communists have to ask the why of all things and make use of of his own judgment to carefully examine if they correspond to reality and if they are well founded; They must not blindly follow others or advocate slavish obedience at all ”. In fact, comrades, carrying out this practice, not only for us but for all those who have propped up this “orbit” has led organizations such as the FRP-MLM of Bolivia (co-managers of the creation of this group) years later to disdain of some aspects that consolidated this unity in ideology (MLMPG) and has taken a step aside to support theses that varied over time and that, Like you, they deny Gonzalo Thought and the existence of a people’s war in Peru, an aspect that reflects the political maturity and seriousness with which the ideological struggle has been handled. By the way, that decision of the comrades of Bolivia does not mean that we put them on the side of the enemy, of those who reject MLM, the people’s war, the New Democracy revolution in semi-feudal and semi-colonial countries, since of all ways for now the basis of unity in the ideology of the international proletariat is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!!
It must be remembered that at a certain moment we signed joint declarations with other organizations that have nothing to do with the “idealistic orbit” of the PCB-FR. Without having tried to endorse positions that by conception the UOC, from Colombia, a sector of comrades from France, Panama and others have; Perhaps sinning as pragmatic, we adhere to the one that called for THE INTERNATIONAL UNITY OF COMMUNISTS DEMANDS THE DEFEAT OF REVISIONISM AND CENTRISM! and that by the way brought us serious contradictions with some organizations and parties in Europe, especially with the comrades of Italy and Spain, thus demonstrating our sovereign decision-making capacity. And we did it because we considered it appropriate, correct; because the document proposed by the comrades of Colombia expressed the need for the international proletariat to struggle against revisionism, opportunism, but also against another enemy of the international proletariat, centrism, which remains alive in the shadow of the contradictions existing in the Nepal. Suffice it to say that under no circumstances could we fold any document that comes loaded with the ink and content of any expression that approaches Prachandism, even less, Avakianism or that denies MLM and / or the people’s wars in Peru, Turkey, India and the Philippines.
(…) The comrades of Canada also refer to an alleged “shameless attack” carried out by the “followers” of the PCB-FR against the most active and advanced Maoist organizations in the world: the Communist Party of India (Maoist) .
In this regard and for the exercise, in the very specific case of the Philippine comrades, we are going to present some arguments from our experience.
A few decades ago, the Maoists of Ecuador were ready to develop people’s war, and we did so under difficult conditions where an opportunist left line prevailed. It’s the truth, and those mistakes cost us a lot. We were weak, we were not well equipped with MLM, nor with Gonzalo Thought and therefore we gave the initiative to the reaction in very difficult circumstances.
In summary, we better understood how much the New Democracy revolution loses in the country and in the world (or socialist revolution where it belongs) when we communists give the enemy a small space to establish negotiations, conversations, agreements, truces, etc. .; and based on our meagre experience we hold with vehemence and determination; There is no reason or condition whatsoever to establish agreements, pacts or negotiations with the enemy except to define its final defeat or its capitulation.
If we offer a truce (bilateral or unilateral) to the enemy, the class and the people lose. In Colombia, armed revisionism is champion in this type of behaviour. Truce for Christmas, for Easter, for winter, for the national day of Colombia or because they are surrounded by the enemy troops. In fact, comrades, by the way, the Philippine comrades made a unilateral truce over the Covid-19 pandemic. The enemy took advantage of the truce to inflict heavy blows on the comrades.
It is in this context in which we have particularly dared to criticize the Philippine comrades and their recurrent calls to “negotiate” truces / cease-fire with the enemy, because even, saving the distances in favour of the Philippine comrades in the development of the war, we understood that this is atrocious for the interests of the class and the revolution, and not only that, but also for the international proletariat, therefore it is worth noting the danger they are incurring.
At this point it is difficult to know, but if the comrades of Nepal had considered and assumed the timely alert and criticism in this regard, Prachanda would probably be where it should be: underground, and the people’s war: close to victory.
But without going beyond that, there is another aspect that is important to highlight. The tremendous impact that certain erroneous behaviours of Philippine comrades have in their international line of work, especially in Ecuador.
One of the most recalcitrantly revisionist, opportunist and harmful parties that exists in the country is the PCMLE (Popular Unity); that from Hoxhaism, they have become Bolivarian; perhaps one of the main obstacles to be destroyed in order for the people’s war to develop in Ecuador.
Some years ago, in a joint action between armed elements of this Party (PCMLE) and the national police, they captured party militants who, basically armed with brushes and paint, were carrying out a campaign of paint in support of the people’s war in Peru, India, Turkey and the Philippines in a public university in the capital (Central University); In addition to the detained comrades, their torture and their subsequent imprisonment, we had to confront the loss of a very important arsenal and the repressive escalation of all the armed apparatuses of the state against the Party that had its climax with the siege of a populous neighbourhood from Guayaquil (48 and K) where with 1500 soldiers, tanks, boats and helicopters concentrated the population, they raided house to house until they shot 4 people in front of their relatives (literally), 3 of them members of the Party. Of course, our response against revisionism was bloody to make them understand that under no circumstances were we going to tolerate or allow this and other types of attacks.
This same organization participates in all electoral processes, including in alliance with the most recalcitrant sectors of national politics (they called to vote for the banker Guillermo Lasso- buyer bourgeoisie and today, facing the 2021 elections, they support indigenous reformism) and They repeatedly traffic in the struggle and pain of our people. Staunch enemies of Maoism.
Every year the PCMLE organizes the International Seminar on the Problems of the Revolution in Latin America, which on some occasions has been attended, in a curious and inexplicable way, by the Philippine comrades who, after that conciliation, end up defining “strategies” for the called revolution in Latin America with organizations such as: Círculo Jaques Roumcin de Montreal – Canada, an organization that you surely know; the PCR of Argentina, of Bolivia; Popular Unity for Socialism of Brazil, Revolutionary Communist Party of Brazil; American Party of Labor of the USA, George Grunental, Red Star Editions – United States; Revolutionary Socialist Party of Peru and obviously the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and other organizations.
Those are the alliances of the Filipino comrades in Ecuador. Questionable, more to the extent that through different channels we have issued letters to comrades warning of their error.
From the above, it is obvious that this type of political decisions by the Philippine comrades contributes nothing to unity in the ideology of the international proletariat and to the need to reconstitute the Communist International; However, there are countless campaigns of support that our party has developed in favour of the people’s war in the Philippines, the historical value that we have given to its martyrs, including Comrade Ka Parago, because we do not let this correct criticism make us lose the perspective and ignore the fundamental aspect of the Filipino comrades. So, for the comrades of Canada, is it better to keep silent? In honour of the unity of the proletariat stuck with slobber and not in ideology, is it better to look aside every time the comrades make truces with the enemy of class, of the poor peasantry and other exploited masses of the Philippines putting at risk the vital effort for the revolution in their country ?; Should we, the communists of Ecuador, look complacently as the comrades of the Philippines sit at the table to draw up “revolutionary” strategies with the most revisionist sector of Ecuador and that on many occasions, openly, has destructively criticized the people’s war in the Peru, ridiculed Chairman Gonzalo and openly declaring itself anti-Maoists?
Comrades. As we pointed out initially, years ago we were wrong, we fell into the ravine, we were beaten by the enemy, and many Maoist organizations and parties were harsh in criticizing us, and we assumed it; We do not take it as poisonous darts that seek to annihilate us, nor (in the pure Modavef style) do we change our strategic course, on the contrary, along the way we have been reconstituting better equipped with ideology. We learned to criticize ourselves, because we use this method as a form of partisan catharsis and, given the historical trajectory of struggle that the Philippine comrades have, we believe that they will know how to accept criticism in that order, as a two-line struggle, as “medicine to save to the sick one”.
(…) In truth, comrades, you have lost all objectivity to assert that we “oppose the people’s wars” that are taking place in the world. The comrades go astray, launch any infamy at the gallop of a mule. Without detracting from the important campaigns carried out by the communists of the world in support of the people’s wars that break out in Filiadas, India, Turkey and Peru, it has been precisely the organizations that wield MLM, mainly Maoism and we recognize the universal contribution of thought Gonzalo, who have carried out the strongest and most decisive campaigns in favour of these wars. Just look at the fabulous and internationalist work done by Dem Volke Dienen’s comrades; the Red Flag Committee at Tjen Folket in Norway, New Peru from Germany;
Read comrades, investigate, absolutely all the pronouncements, statements and publications of these Parties, whether individually or collectively, we revive the people’s wars, the same ones that even in the framework of setbacks, twists and others have had the militant and internationalist support of our parties; Quite the contrary to you, who at the first blow of wind come out to deny the People’s War in Peru. Apparently their accusations are nothing more than a projection of what they feel, what they think about this and other topics addressed in their document and surely in their practice.
(…) Continuing with the document, the Canadian comrades return to what has become a true tirade: that we support an “imaginary war” in Peru. The comrades, like other organizations that proclaim the same fallacy, end up being subservient and functional for the counterrevolutionary strategy of the CIA. Likewise, they join the chorus of the Peruvian reaction; they grab onto Modavef’s tail and from that dump they shout, they maintain: there is no people’s war in Peru because it has already been defeated!
In this regard we must say, denying the existence of the people’s war in Peru has become a counterrevolutionary act. Canada’s comrades do not want to understand how just wars are played out today as opposed to unjust wars; how the reaction in Peru hand in hand with the imperialist strategy considered, according to its plans to neutralize and defeat the people’s war, that it was not enough to murder the prisoners of war, unleash the “white terror” massacring entire communities, support of the bases of support in the field; they were clear that they had to attack Chairman Gonzalo directly, cut his line of command; dynamite the leadership, but it was also peremptory to go for ideology, and there they used Movadef to distort the basic foundations of Gonzalo Thought and New Democracy; that is to say, to face the fact that the war was defeated, and not only that, but there is no longer semi-feudality, that the war resolved that contradiction; that in that journey or stage, Peru became from semi-feudal to dependent capitalist, consequently the revolution must be socialist. Of course, what is sought is to take away from the proletariat its strategic ally: the poor peasantry, in the course of the New Democracy, and in this way dismantle the people’s war. But no comrades, you, imperialism, reaction and the ROL have skinny dog dreams if you believe that the people’s war was defeated; obviously, he lives a corner that is already being overcome; it is not easy in the course of the war to reconstitute the leadership, but in the same way, The People’s Liberation Army, despite combat difficulties, generates new Power; it recovers strategic spaces, keeps the enemy at bay, demonstrating the strength of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought.
Lacking in knowledge the comrades from Canada fire their shots into the air with wet gunpowder, they want to make waves by throwing a handful of lentils into the river. That is what they want, it cannot be otherwise, they get angry and from their most abject ignorance, or worse, from their demobilizing role they want to deny everything. In truth, the comrades should get closer to Latin America, get to know its people, the communist parties, above all try to better understand what is happening in Peru and under what conditions the people’s war is taking place.
(…) In their document, the Canadian comrades also point out that we have no respect for the people’s war in Nepal.
The comrades recreate shadows. They do not know the support that was given to this process in Latin America; what was not done is to support those like Kiran and others who were involved in contradictions with Prachanda for the sharing of power, who wanted to be shown to the world as the red line in Nepal and were timely fought not only by those whom the comrades of Canada brand as “idealistic line”, but by other organizations with which they now sign joint statements. In fact, comrades, there are countless campaigns of pints and mass mobilization that we have undertaken in support of the reorganization of the people’s war in Nepal.
By the way, In a letter sent to the comrades of Dazibao Rojo on September 8, 2012 we pointed out the importance of supporting the reestablishment of the people’s war in Nepal and why we openly opposed the support given to Kirán. And history, both to us and to other Maoist organizations, unfortunately proved us right; and we unfortunately say because we consider that both you, some comrades from Spain who fell into the trap of Kiran, and we, we would have liked the impulse to be different, that in truth Kirán and others have had the ideological arrests to correct and resume the people’s war until the triumph and maintenance of the New Power in Nepal. Like other Maoist organizations, he unfortunately agreed with us; and we unfortunately say because we consider that both you, some comrades from Spain who fell into the trap of Kiran, and we, we would have liked the impulse to be different, that in truth Kirán and others have had the ideological arrests to correct and resume the people’s war until the triumph and maintenance of the New Power in Nepal. Like other Maoist organizations, he unfortunately agreed with us; and we unfortunately say because we consider that both you, some comrades from Spain who fell into the trap of Kiran, and we, we would have liked the impulse to be different, that in truth Kirán and others have had the ideological arrests to correct and resume the people’s war until the triumph and maintenance of the New Power in Nepal.
(…) And yes, the Canadian cameras are not only clinging to the tail of the ROL, they are also holding onto the revisionists and other opportunists who at the time criticized and branded the Chinese comrades revisionists and opportunists when you held the VII Congress of the CCP (1945) that the guiding thought of the party is Mao Tsetung Thought and that it was specifically – by then – the application of Marxism-Leninism to the reality of China. Today they reply, today it is the Khrushchev’s of the ICM who howl and oppose Gonzalo Thought. And like it or not, Mao Tsetung thought despite having several detractors who clung to the hands of the dog Deng Xiaoping, Khrushchev, Hoxha and others, there were also some parties and organizations that began to value Chairman Mao’s contributions for consider them to have worldwide validity. In Colombia, the PLA ML Thought Mao Tsetung; in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Spain and other parties and organizations in the world they were renamed ML Mao Tsetung Thought and to propose New Democracy and others. Of course, the historical evidence tells us that none of these organizations and / or parties came up with defining Mao Tsetung Thought as Maoism, why? Because that definition had to be subject to certain historical conditions that allowed deepening its study and application.
The comrades of the RCP, consider that even before the People’s War in Peru there was already a universal recognition of Maoism without being Maoism (¿), however, the comrades refuse to recognize that Maoism, as such, was defined, recognized, wielded and defended as such, as the third and superior stage of Marxism-Leninism with the beginning and development of the people’s war in Peru.
The comrades, in a clear idealistic manifestation, refuse to understand how and under what conditions Mao Tsetung Thought was generated and how it came to be defined as Maoism; initially within the framework of the revolution in a country like China with different characteristics from those that existed in Russia before the Bolshevik revolution; on the basis of inter-imperialist contradictions (USA_URSS); world wars, cultural revolution; international proletarian movement, national liberation movement, struggle between Marxism and revisionism and later the development of the GP in Peru.
The RCP points out that: Before the people’s war in Peru, did Mao Tsetung Thought already have the same weight and meaning as what we now know as Maoism? No comrades; after the Cultural Revolution the Chinese Khrushchev, Deng Xiaoping and his clique took pains to distort it, besides attacking it, they always tried to show it as unfeasible; Nor was it put in tension in Vietnam or in any other place on the planet, as indeed it was done in Peru in the process of reconstitution of the Party and other instruments for the revolution; where Chairman Gonzalo, Gonzalo Thought and the Party had a deeper understanding of Mao Tsetung Thought initiating and developing people’s war, otherwise it would have been impossible for this to happen and with it the recognition of what today we communists of the world,
And no comrades, when the PCP and particularly Chairman Gonzalo systematizes Mao Tsetung thought, it does not do so “in a vacuum” regardless of the practice – as you point out – it certainly does so by analyzing the experience of the Chinese revolution and Furthermore, in the course of preparing, initiating and developing the people’s war in Peru, that is, validating the theory in practice, in fact, of course, without underestimating the important two-line struggle that was generated at the time. MRI.
As a means of arguing its presentation, the RCP points out that Stalin “did not systematize Leninism. He defended Leninism”. Yes, it is true, Stalin defended it, but they ignore a fundamental fact, which before that defined it as such, as Leninism and applied it in a new context, in that of the Cold War, in the counter-offensive of Yankee Imperialism with the support of the imperialist and capitalist powers of Europe in and after World War II, and do not forget comrades that it was precisely Stalin in 1924 who affirmed that “you could not be a Marxist if you were not a Marxist-Leninist”, just like us, In particular, the communists of Ecuador say it with force, determination and without ambiguity, at present you cannot be a Marxist-Leninist without being a Maoist and in a particular way, To be a Maoist today is to recognize the contributions of universal validity of Gonzalo Thought, in such a way that we consider Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Gonzalo Thought! considering that this is the correct ideological line to develop the people’s war in our country and put it at the service of the World Proletarian Revolution.
(…) The comrades of Canada have an inexplicable disagreement with the most elementary Marxist, historical materialist, dialectical analysis; in fact, it easily reminds us of Avakian’s vain pretensions. No comrades, you cannot compare the contributions Lenin made to Marxism, or Chairman Mao to Marxism-Leninism; We are not there for that, although it is true it is a whole, as you well point out, they are also a dialectical sequence that becomes a synthesis, although it is true that it begins with Marx and Engels, we cannot think that it will end with Chairman Mao and Maoism. That is idealism, comrades, mechanism of the grossest;
We even find it rude, comrades when they point out that “how is it possible that the Communist Party of China, several decades before the emergence of “Gonzalo Thought”, managed not only to lead a people’s war but to lead it to victory? How is it that the Vietnamese communists, several years before the so-called “synthesis” of Maoism, managed to do the same? “in relation to what was sustained in one of the statements in which we pointed out the impossibility of a people’s war without having assimilated the contributions with universal validity of Gonzalo Thought.
They want to compare and oppose the People’s War in Peru with other historical processes. They again throw a handful of lentils into the river, this time pretending a tsunami: “even the Vietnamese resistance wars against French and American imperialism (…) had a much greater influence than the People’s War in Peru in the world and that unlike the latter resulted in victory.” What an analysis! What a comparison! Comrades, analyze the context; the characteristics of the war in Vietnam were of national liberation, they did not consider the possibility of developing a New Democracy revolution; Furthermore, in 1967 they chose to follow the Soviet social-imperialism led by Khrushchev and implement in Vietnam a bureaucratic dictatorship over its people, alien to the leadership of the proletariat. However, and undeterred, the comrades countless times accuse the comrades of the PCB-FR and “their satellites” of being idealistic, petty-bourgeois, of ignoring historical materialism. (?)
(…) People’s War until communism
The comrades of Canada also give each other ways to point their rifles on the slogan: People’s War until Communism!
Likewise, they qualify it as wrong; as a “reduction of what means people’s war”, they consider that the people’s war is a “form of revolutionary action and a strategy to dismantle the military forces of the class enemy and take power” (…) “that once the power is conquered throughout the country and the enemy armed forces have been crushed, the military confrontation ends for the simple reason that there is no longer a militarily organized adversary to confront”.
Comrades. The seizure of power alone does not represent anything; nor does the destruction of the military apparatus guarantee that the enemy has been totally liquidated. In fact, to some extent he regains his strength because imperialism is going to support him more and better. Power is expressed not only in the arrest of the means of production; Power is no longer only expressed in the military apparatus, it is also shown solidly in the field of consciousness and in another aspect that has become very strong today: the militarization of societies.
Today’s imperialism is obviously not the imperialism of the last century; deploys new strategies, they have been recreating them for decades in Colombia to combat armed revisionism using alternative apparatuses, paramilitary groups or opposing masses against masses. They have done it in Peru, where imperialism put its greatest effort. Let’s see what happens in Syria, they continue with that line of balkanization; they instrumentalize the masses of the same countries to weaken or overthrow governments or states. Comrades, it is not enough to defeat the old military apparatus, it is important to develop people’s war to defend the new power. It is fundamental, and that defense has long since ceased to be the responsibility basically of the new apparatus, the new army, it is up to the armed sea of masses to do so; As Marx and Engels said, without that “armed sea” of masses, there is no possibility of defending Power and bringing it to communism. We insist on the need to recognize and rescue the experience of the international proletariat in the Paris Commune, or of the USSR, where the lack of militarization of the party and of arming the masses contributed to the leadership apparatuses of the party and the professional army being easily assaulted by restorative revisionism.
Comrades, the People’s War is much more than an army made up of guerrillas organized into local forces, main forces, and armed militias destroying the enemy’s living forces until they take power, and having achieved this purpose, going to lock up in the barracks. The war that the proletariat and the poor peasantry raises is an integral, systemic, dialectical war, where every vestige of the old Power is destroyed, that is, its old armed apparatus, its old productive structure, its old relations of production, its old culture. and the masses, under proletarian leadership, have that task, but on the same premise and with the same vehemence, they must defend the new Power that will try to be undermined and destroyed by the bourgeois and landlord remnants with the support of imperialism in the same spheres. .
Chairman Mao points out the importance of arming the masses even after victory has been achieved: “As the imperialists commit so many outrages against us, we have to treat them seriously. We must not only have a powerful regular army, but also organize contingents of popular militia everywhere, so that the imperialists, if they attack us, can hardly move to a single point in the country ”, “If imperialism dares to unleash a war of aggression against our country; the people’s militia will operate in coordination with the People’s Liberation Army and will reinforce it at all times to defeat the oppressors”. And not only that, comrades, but Chairman Mao considered the militias and the armed forces as an instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Today, in the absence of the socialist camp (since 1976), the Yankee imperialist superpower is much more daring, violent, it feels itself owner of the world despite the counterweight that Chinese and Russian imperialism tries to apply. It shows it in Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen. Precisely in recent times it has not ceased in its threat to invade Venezuela, to position itself more solidly with its armed contingent in Colombia and other countries where it has puppets, lackeys, all armed, just as violent, because imperialism and reaction in general know that Power defends itself with violence. Should we communists invent another way to defend Power outside of violence that must necessarily be expressed as people’s war?
It is that surely the comrades of the RCP think that we communists, with Power in our hands, become humanitarian souls, that we must treat the bourgeois remnants with white gloves, with cowardice (¿). No, we are not going to make that mistake again! The problem with Power also lies in how to defend it. We well know that it is accessed by war and is defended by war, the limits of which can only be established by the capacity it has to decisively and definitively annihilate or neutralize its enemy, that the problem is ultimately defined by who “uses force without regard, without economy of blood”. Clausewitz maintained this and also warned of what you draw regarding how to handle the bourgeois remnants in socialism; “The mistakes made out of benignity are precisely the most damaging”; And if to wield the defense of the New Power with people’s war is to want to show a radicalized vision of it, well, that’s why.
No comrades, they can’t, in fact, they don’t have the right and make mistakes that way; In the current circumstances in the world there is a certain tendency towards a greater fascism and reaction of the old states; waging war to destroy the old power becomes a much more bloody, harsh, complex strategic exercise that does not necessarily conform to dogmas or formulas that must be replicated mechanically, not comrades, the conditions are different; today it is necessary to militarize the communist parties, militarize the masses to defend the new power with people’s war, understand that people’s war is “a strategic perspective to guarantee the dictatorship of the proletariat” as Chairman Gonzalo points out.
Chairman Mao says well: “the proletariat aspires to transform the universe according to its conception of the world, and the bourgeoisie according to its own.” Although it is true that the proletariat and its allies destroy the old bourgeois-landlord power (in the semi-colonial), are not the old bourgeoisie and the big landowners going to organize the recovery of power by armed or violent means ?; Is their military apparatus defeated, will they resort to “democratic” means to destroy the new power? In both New Democracy and socialism, antagonistic classes survive and as long as societies are made up of antagonistic classes, war is to the death!
The maintenance of the people’s war until communism establishes, as a basis, the absolute predominance of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-mainly Maoism until a new thought emerges and is consolidated worldwide as the development of MLM.
One of the brilliant contributions that Chairman Mao made to Marxism, and which would establish itself as one of the starting points that would mark the emergence of Mao Tsetung thought, was the study of the correct treatment of contradictions within the people. In fact, within the people there will be contradictions that must be resolved in this order, of the two-line struggle, such as the one we propose will develop with you to the extent that they do not become antagonistic; However, with revisionism raised directly to a restorative strategy or that prevents the revolution from unleashing, it must be a fight to the death; against the bourgeois-feudal remnants it must be driven to death, and not because one wants to show a version of the dictatorship of the proletariat as a new “radical” version, as you point out, but because the history of the class struggle has taught us that it must be that way. If the enemy does everything it considers doing to be able to hold the old Power, why shouldn’t the proletariat do that, and more so to hold its dictatorship?
Comrades, basically the criers of a bourgeois military line can think that way, focus on the idea that the popular army as a vertical, unique, bureaucratic, professional armed structure, divorced from the masses; it is thinking like Khrushchev, Peng De-juai and Luo Rui-ching who promoted the idea of a professional army, separated from the people, from the masses. Why did they think and act in this way? Because in this way the leadership of the army could easily be assaulted and turned into an instrument to usurp the leadership of the party. History let us see that this line is opportunistic, rabidly anti-dictatorship of the proletariat. In fact, to some extent it also happened in Peru,
Lenin alerted him by pointing out “that the bourgeoisie remained stronger than the proletariat even after the latter had seized power, and that it will always try to make a return to power.” Stalin was weak in that regard; This is one of their mistakes, not to fully recognize and in its true dimension the existence of antagonistic classes in socialism and how to resolve these irreconcilable contradictions.
Comrades, the class struggle is a struggle for Power and the fundamentals of Maoism is that, Power, Power for the proletariat. The fundamental thing in Gonzalo Thought is Power, but also how to sustain Power in the framework of new contradictions where an imperialist superpower such as the US survives; imperialist powers that enter into the division of the world, but also, in a scenario where the petty bourgeois reformism puts us new scenarios and where a neo-revisionism has clearly emerged that has given ways of raising a battle to the correct ideological line of the international proletariat .
(…) The comrades of Canada also consider that those of us who uphold the Marxism-Leninism-Maoism thesis, mainly Maoism, give it an equivocal assessment of what the Cultural Revolution represented.
No comrades. We start from a fundamental premise that our comrades do not seem to understand correctly. The cultural revolution is above all CLASS STRUGGLE.
In Chairman Mao’s China, after the seizure of power, the structural transformation did not occur mechanically and in the midst of a sacrosanct peace. That is, the productive forces were developed, private property over the means of production was suppressed, and exploitative relations of production were eliminated. Not comrades, an ideological revolution was also necessary because it was necessary to root out the conceptions that tied the masses to feudalism, to the old structure, to the bourgeois conceptions that survive and of which the restorers take advantage to undermine the new power. These leaps occurred in the midst of confrontations, some, antagonistic, to the death; others, within the people, one, red line, Chairman Mao, the other, the other, the Chinese Khrushchev, Deng Xiaoping and his clique,
The cultural revolution did not respond to operating basically in the field of consciousness, as you suggest; Through that revolution, the consolidation of proletarian power had a notable impact. It is important to recreate what Chairman Mao pointed out in this regard: “the social being of man determines his thinking. The correct ideas characteristic of the advanced class, once dominated by the masses, become a material force that transforms society, the world”. Without the Cultural Revolution, the teachings of Marx and Engels that the emancipation of the workers is the work of the workers themselves would not have been evident; consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat, strengthen its class consciousness and advance production.
We must not forget comrades that Chairman Mao did not see the revolution isolated from the central problem that appeared in the structure, but rather saw it in a systemic, related way, making the cultural revolution was a problem of the class struggle that was linked to the tasks of also fighting for scientific production and experimentation. In fact, Chairman Mao considered that “we often find incomprehensible leap phenomena in everyday life in which matter can become consciousness and consciousness into matter”, so we cannot be banal and not consider this dialectical relationship that is expressed as a contradiction.
Comrades, if in some way we, the communists of Ecuador, the nobodies, the little ones, the tiny satellites of the PCB-FR could define the cultural revolution, we would do so by arguing that this was, above all, class struggle; weapon for the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, but above all the way in which the absolute predominance of Mao Tsetung thought was established in China.
(…) Comrades; We believe that today to be a communist is to be a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, mainly a Maoist, because we are living a turning point determined by the conditions in which the inter-imperialist contradictions develop in which there is no longer a socialist camp; where the new division of the world is between the Yankee imperialist superpower and the other imperialist powers that seek to establish a certain counterweight to the Yankee empire; where the development of Chinese imperialism, which, apart from the dictatorship of the proletariat, disputes markets with the United States; where the MCI is dispersed by the presence of neo-revisionism exposed by currents such as Avakian; the crumbs that Prachanda has left scattered in some places;
We are mainly Maoists because we consider that we are entering a stage of inflection and leap, where in countries, particularly in the third world, the weight of Gonzalo Thought is ceasing to be incidental to becoming decisive in politics and ideology.
Let us remember what happened in China, which became the centre of the world proletariat after the October revolution; that Mao-Tsetung thought was a touchstone for Khrushchev’s revisionism, Deng Xiaoping; against reformism and even against those parties and organizations that hand over the responsibility of undertaking national liberation struggles to the national bourgeoisie or the petty bourgeoisie. It was constituted in the centre of Marxism-Leninism until before the People’s War in Peru and that from there, becoming Maoism, opened gaps for the deed of a new impulse, a new leap, Gonzalo Thought, today constituted the most effective touchstone for distinguishing revolutionaries from counterrevolutionaries;
(…) And yes, comrades, without pretending to be pragmatic and eclectic, we can also agree with you on the need to fight against the communist parties and organizations that have distorted the class struggle, that have changed the course to follow in relation to create subjective conditions for people’s war and revolution by getting bogged down in “postmodernist” struggles that contribute nothing to the revolution and that on the contrary distract the proletariat from its fundamental struggles. In any case, it must be understood that postmodernism not only becomes the subjective management of the struggles of the masses and the distortion of the class struggle, it is also revealed in the new forms of struggle that they intend to print within the masses.
In Ecuador it has been enough that a dynamic group that, hiding behind a Maoist claim “The rebellion is justified” and sustaining an eclectic discourse, has developed and to some extent contaminated the forms of struggle of the class and the masses. Drums, mimes, clowns, whistles, dancers, are the actors and methods of struggle that seek to replace the determined and combative action of the proletariat, peasantry and other exploited masses.
Comrades, with the above we do not refer to the fact that we agree with you in pointing out that this is the line of struggle applied by the comrades of the United States whom we respect and value in a way and that you attack with so much vehemence, but because evidently, many communist parties that define themselves as Maoists have fallen into this game of dispersion, becoming real obstacles to the revolution.
Comrades of the RCP of Canada, an internationalist call to get out of that small world to which they are shackled by a subjective vision of reality, of the contradictions that arise within the international proletariat. It is not for us, as communists, to lean on a materialism tainted with idealism or to merge dialectics with metaphysics to rant with those who, even with errors typical of those who tirelessly try again and again to unleash the people’s war for conquest and defence of Power for the class on that inevitable path to reach communism.
You have to get out of that platonic cave that only lets you see shadows and false realities. With ideology and its correct application, it is necessary to explore, interpret and transform objective reality; It is urgent to accept criticism in a constructive way, as “medicine for the patient” and avoid or discard those false academic claims that do not contribute to the two-line struggle and that end up being instrumentalized by imperialism and other enemies of the class and the people to conjure up the revolution.
Comrades, if we do not fight against revisionism, we will have done nothing.
LONG LIVE MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM, MAINLY MAOISM!
LONG LIVE MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM, GONZALO THOUGHT!
IF WE DON’T FIGHT AGAINST REVISIONISM, WE WILL HAVE DONE NOTHING!
FOR UNITY IN THE IDEOLOGY OF THE INTERNATIONAL PROLETARIAT!
LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE’S WAR IN PERU, INDIA, THE PHILIPPINES AND TURKEY!
LONG LIVE THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF BRAZIL RED FRACTION AND OTHER COMMUNIST PARTIES COMMITTED TO THE WORLD PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION!
Organisations big and small commented on the 1973 coup, pamphlet after pamphlet and article after article of in-depth analyses devoted to Chile came from all varieties of the political left, where the minutiae of Allende‘s brief tenure were forensically examined. Such analyses conclude with different emphasis that revisionism, reformism and nationalism can only lead the working class into a fascist blind alley. More than 3,000 people were killed in the first months following the coup. More than 200,000 were arrested. Subject to illegal detention, torture and other human rights abuses, their children stolen and 30,000 people disappeared before the dictatorship finally ended in 1990.
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