There were many testimonies on the passing of comrade Sison that referenced his political contribution and achievements of his remarkable life. The sentiments expressed in more than one observation should suffice to speak volumes:
“At every stage of his life, Joma could have taken the easy path. He could have settled into the life of a petty-bourgeois professor or intellectual, making his peace with the class inequalities of Philippine society. He could have capitulated into the revisionist PKP and become another hack apparatchik. He could have capitulated to Marcos avoiding years of isolation and torture. He could have accepted one of many offers to order the NPA to put down their guns and joined one of the post-Marcos administrations. He could have settled into a quiet retirement, instead of writing and giving interviews up until the very end of his life. Comrade Joma Sison lived his whole life going against the tide, upholding revolution until the very end.”
In November 2022, Maoist Road announced the appearance of a new online journal focused on various positions and criticisms around a Unified Maoist International Conference. The journal “Two Lines Struggle”, reproduces statements previously made on the subject. The journal is described as …. not the journal of a party, or a block, a faction or particular trend within the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists, but the decision of different parties and organizations in order to promote the two-lines-struggle within the communists, as its name and slogan indicate, and to contribute to its unity, in particular, with the preparation of a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Unified International Conference.
Contents
Editorial For an International Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Conference
Proposal Regarding the Balance of the International Communist Movement and of its Current General Political Line – CUMIC
On the “Proposal on the Balance of the International Communist Movement and its current General Political Line – For a Unified Maoist International Conference!” – UOC (mlm) Colombia
Some critical notes on “For a Unified Maoist International Conference! – Proposal regarding the balance of the International Communist Movement and of its current General Political Line” – PCm Italy
On the Unified Maoist Conference (UMIC) – CCPCM Galicia
The Approach of Our Party on the Prepared Draft – TKP/ML Turkey
Info for other documents in web-site
Debate
Brief critical Notes on “Our Position Against the Imperialist War in Ukraine” of Communist International website – PCm Italy
On the “criticism” of the Italian comrades – CI-IC.org
On the Necessary Development of the Two Lines Struggle on the War in Ukraine – PCm Italy
Communist Party of Nepal (Revolutionary – Maoist) by Maoist Outlook
People’s Wars
Answers of Basavraj, General Secretary of CC, CPI (Maoist) to the Questions of Journalist Alf
Let’s develop the Revolutionary Struggle against the Imperialist World War Preparations! Joint Declaration by Communist Workers Union (mlm) – Colombia / Construction Committee of the Maoist Communist Party of Galicia / Maoist Communist Party Italy/ Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan. One of the initial signatories was missing for the journal’s republication, that of Red Road of Iran (Maoist group).
Sweden
A separate , while related, contribution was posted in the Swedish section of the Banned Thought website
“Gonzaloism: A ‘Left’ Revisionist Deviation”, by Thomas Berg, 3rd Ed., September 2022, 36 pages, from the Kommunistiska Föreningen [“The Communist Association”] in Sweden.
Direct link [BANNEDTHOUGHT.NET]
Italy
One of the sponsors behind Maoist Road, the (new) Italian Communist Party was the subject of an interview carried by the American Kites journal “about issues concerning international communist movement, starting with the summation of the first world proletarian revolution (1917-1976). Thus, the interest for it isn’t limited to North America (US and Canada) nor to Italy. We think that its study will be useful to all those who will make it in order to develop a frank and open debate about these issues.”
Kites (www.kites-journal.org) was founded in 2020 by two North American organizations: Revolutionary Initiative (RI) from Canada and Organization of Communist Revolutionaries (OCR) from US. It is a publication aimed to the discussion about revolutionary strategy and tactics that communists have to adopt in North America and in their respective activity contexts. Until now, they published five issues of the review.
Other news from Turtle Island
Canada
From the Communist Worker’s Front (Organizing Committee) , that has its origins as a red fraction of the student “MER-RSM”,came its analyse On the Complete Liquidation of the “PCR-RCP” It refers to the start of the year in January,[2022] when a split occurred in the Continuator faction of the PCR-RCP between the old-guard centred in the Norman Bethune House and the young-guard who have since dissolved the Continuator faction of the PCR-RCP to found the supposed “Communist Vanguard of Canada”. In passing, political attacks are made on other Canadian leftist, Revolutionary Initative, expelled opponents of the Continuator faction “CCG”/”CMU” that built a public face under the name of Young Socialists for People’s Power which would later take up the name of its magazine Youth Riseup! . Adding to the mix are defunct organizations, such as the Ontario-based the “Social Revolution Party” and the “Revolutionary Workers Party”.
As self-declared partisans of Gonzalo Thought, “We call for all communists, militants, and workers reading this document to not fall for the false flag of reconstitution raised by the revisionists, who want to turn back the clock on the “PCR-RCP”. Nor must we wait idly for a communist party to arrive while the proletariat clamour. Instead, we must look ahead at the road of hard work and struggle in reconstituting our general headquarters for people’s war!”
USA
The continuing existence of autonomous local organizations of pre-party formations pepper the American scene with a number of organizations that emerged from the breakup of the Organizing Committee for a Maoist Communist Party (MCP-OC) looking towards party building and national coordination . These, often identified by the FTP- For the People – prefix to a geographical location, comprises small Marxist-Leninist-Maoist political organization activists engaged in ideological study and localised mass work however regarding themselves as building blocks for a reconstituted national communist party.
Not all are on board as For the People – Boston (FTP – Boston) critiqued moves for the re-constitution of a national formation to coordinate leadership and unity of action among the organizations bearing the FTP name with Marxism or Idealism? Once Again on Party Building and our Tasks, a response to the “It Won’t Stop Until We Stop It” 2021 May Day statement, published on People’s Voice News. For the reasons it argues FTP-Boston believe that a centralised national network, and its lack of ideological clarity and consolidation determined to be inappropriate at this stage of struggle.
It had provided a summation of its strategic criticism as a component of the Maoist Communist Party – OC that saw the dismantling of the central structure of the MCP-OC at its 2020 congress. The document, One Step Forward Two Steps Back: mutual aid, “mass work” and communist strategy, “advances that the central work for those formations emerging from the MCP-OC is primarily organizational. The small group left remains isolated from the masses, and has failed to develop serious unity on the basis of a real revolutionary program. This deficiency can only be overcome through the summation of (and struggle over) protracted sequences of mass work”.
The Maoist Communist Union, its antecedents in the Mass Proletariat organization (2016-2020), founded in late 2020, describes itself as “an organization dedicated to advancing the principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in the struggle for revolution in the United States” primarily working in Massachusetts. The MCU has produced two issues so far of a theoretical journal Red Pages.
Some of the self-declared groups may register more on the internet than anywhere else – The Cincinnati Study Collective – whereas others, while sharing a similar goal, display a more sober and modest attitude; the Revolutionary Maoist Coalition – Chicago states in its Points of Unity,
“Although we are not a party formation, we understand that no revolution can be won without the leadership of a vanguard party armed with the ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. It is our hope that through the experience and theories learned from work within our revolutionary mass organization that the most politically advanced members among us will develop further and eventually be able to constitute a Maoist Party which is capable of toppling the capitalist-imperialist system.”
Late December [21, 2022] saw an unsigned commentary posted on the online site, Communist International highlighted an attempt to liquidate the Committee to Reconstitute the Communist Party of the USA (CRCPUSA).
A Reddit posting described the CRCPUSA as a clandestine organization hence the lack of public statements or organizational documents. Its origins are rooted in the Red Guard milieu dissolved around late 2018 .The posting identified Tribune of the People as a news outlet that reports on the revolutionary movement in the US and supports reconstituting the Party. US-based Internet Blogger, Black like Mao, commented two years ago that
“Tribune does not publish materials from ILPS, from FTP chapters, or from Maoist Communist Group, because they do not support these organizations. They publish materials from UNDM, the various European Gonzaloite sects, and the Brazilian pMs because they support these projects. You’re not clandestine, you’re not in the middle of a people’s war, you’re a few people that have decided to go to a few protests, wheatpaste some flyers about the peasant struggle in Brazil, and try to organize tenants. “
Struggle Sessions, a Maoist theoretical journal, also supports this movement and reconstitution, however last published in December 2021. (Incidentally do read the blistering Against the Red Boys’ Club: A Revolutionary Woman Responds to the ‘Struggle Sessions Editorial Board’)
A statement of the situation of the Maoists in the USA
Since February/March this year, the comrades in the United States who struggle for the reconstitution of the Communist Party in their country are facing a complicated internal situation resulting from an attempt to liquidate the Committee to Reconstitute the Communist Party of the USA (CRCPUSA) – the ongoing initiative to unify all the communist in the task of reconstituting the communist Party of the United States under Maoism. The liquidationists are launching a vicious internet campaign in which they go so far as snitching, diffusing internal information about the revolutionary organizations, and, in the most repulsive cases, publicizing names and photos of alleged leading members. This helps the reaction in striking blows against the revolutionary and communist movement. It is collaboration with and legitimization of the enemy apparatuses, and does not, in any way, help to build a communist party, nor does it constitute a method of revolutionaries and communists for developing the struggle.
Chairman Mao always insisted on the necessity to correctly draw the line between Yenan and Sian, that is between revolution and counter-revolution. He also advocated to “clearly differentiating the errors that take place at the practical work (problems of application) from the errors of principle (problems with the conception), separating Marxism from revisionism”. The attempt to liquidate the CRCPUSA confuses Yenan and Sian, and the mistakes on principles with those made within the practical work, and, in doing so, it harms the effort for the reconstitution of the Communist Party in the United States.
Accusing people of being revisionist requires a serious critic of its ideological, political and organizational line. It can only be made by conducting a persistent and protracted two-line-struggle, and this is always carried out with the aim of unifying the Party and not destroying the Party. We call on all the honest comrades in the United States – which we believe constitute the overwhelming majority of those that had taken part in the process of reconstitution- who wish to serve the struggle for the reconstitution of the Communist Party of the USA to follow “Practice marxism, not revisionism; work towards unity, not for splitting; act in honest and honored way and don’t thread intrigues nor machinations”. A principled two-line-struggle through the correct internal channels must be conducted with the aim of firmly unifying on the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the struggle against imperialism, revisionism, and the reaction, and to serve the development of revolution in the US as part of and in service of the world proletarian revolution. We call all the comrades that have criticism toward other comrades to dispose all post-modernist criteria in the struggle, to reject individualism and personal disputes. All criticism must have a political sense. We call all comrades that have committed mistakes to undergo serious and honest self-criticism and to correct the mistakes in their revolutionary practice. We call on all comrades who have been left without reliable contacts to not despair, nor open any organizational debates and information online, nor cease their work with the masses, we urge them to keep developing their revolutionary activities. With the proper development of two-line-struggle, you will be able to reconnect and participate in it through the internal channels.
Liquidating the CRCPUSA does not serve revolution and does not combat revisionism, rather it destroys the efforts to unify the communist under the task of reconstituting the communist Party of the United States. Calls to “destroy the CRCPUSA” are only expression of liquidationism and is not the way Maoists struggle to impose the correct line. On international level, the CRCPUSA continues to be the only recognized organization that represents the struggle for the reconstitution of the Communist Party in the United States, and we urge all comrades to develop internal two-line-struggle, to apply unity-struggle-unity, and to firmly reject all snitching and police work.
The international communist movement fully supports the struggle of the comrades in the United States and will support the two-line-struggle to rectify mistakes and to achieve a higher unity in the path of unifying under Maoism; and reconstituting the communist Party of US.
Ireland
The third edition of An Ghrian Dhearg, produced by the Irish Socialist Republicans appears just as its first edition is posted online at the Irish left Archive:
An Ghrian Dhearg, No. 1 (2020)
https://www.leftarchive.ie/document/6219/ [Irish Left Archive]
Academia
Global Maoisms is the topic of issue 22 (Summer 2022) of the journal Twentieth Century Communism . Lawrence Wishart print edition available for £18
Contents
Editor’s introduction: The Chinese communist revolution, Maoism and its global influence, pages 5‑14 EVAN SMITH Free to download
The formation and disintegration of Hong Kong Maoists in the ‘Fiery Era’ (1970-1981), pages 6‑46 YANG YANG, PIK-KA LAU, IP PO YEE Free to download
What did Swiss Maoism stand for? The loyalty of the KPS(ML) to Beijing in question, pages 47‑70 CYRIL CORDOBA
Building a new old left: The first period of the Greek Marxist-Leninist movement (1963-1967), pages 71‑93 CHRISTOS MAIS Free to download
‘Serving the people’. A short history of Spanish Maoism (1964- 1980), pages 94‑116 EDUARDO ABAD GARCIA
The China Friendship traveller in the 1970s and the dilemma of propaganda: memory, emotional response and narrative, pages 117‑140 ANNE HEDḖN
Not going ‘pop’: the aesthetic criticism of early British Maoism, pages 141‑165 LAWRENCE PARKER
‘The city is dying … The suburbs are growing … The country shrinks’: spatial Maoism and Suburban Press, pages 166‑190 DANIEL FROST
AND you can explore for free the 23 national sections of material posted at Encyclopedia of anti-Revisionism On-Line (marxists.org).
Foreign Language Press
And FLP living up to its name, and goal of providing the broadest possible access to revolutionary literature at an affordable cost, publishing high production paperbacks of over 130 Marxist titles in a variety of languages available from their web shop https://flpress.storenvy.com
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