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. “
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:
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
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!
MLM Line Struggle concerning the struggle in the International Communist Movement on the role of Chairman Gonzalo
#3
Documentary material on radical themes & occurrences
INTRODUCTION
The inspirational struggle unleashed in Peru last century still reverberates, and for all its complexities, it generates debate and confrontations that shape contemporary revolutionary politics. The Communist Party of Peru were commonly referred to as the Shining Path. That struggle did not begin with its armed phase in 1980, nor 1970 when independent of the Communist Party of Peru — Bandera Roja (red flag), itself formed in 1964, from a split in the revisionist Peruvian Communist Party. Its origins and period of preparation contain valuable experiences to draw upon, however these postings singularly focus on exploring the contentious evaluation of the role of the imprisoned Chairman Gonzalo. Using participants’ contributions, it illustrates the issues and positions that set the polemical texture as they sought “to keep our red flag flying in Peru.”
In a sense, the international communist movement had had a Peruvian shadow, having to address questions it raised. The 21st century legacy of the armed struggle initiated in the remote countryside of Peru in 1980 was that it raised major questions for revolutionaries throughout the world.
It raised the ideological threshold for what constituted Mao’s contribution
It suggested a Peruvian template for preparation and laying the foundations for a higher stage of struggle
It renew consideration of what constituted the strategic line of protracted people’s war
It provided a contentious model of a militarised party organisation
It evaluated the idea of leadership with the concept of Guiding Thought
It tangentially inspired a minor Third wordlist/Lin Biaoist revival
In its disintegration it provides assessment and evaluation to correct the practice of ongoing struggles
To keep our red flag flying in Peru: Word & Web (Part one)
Access to the writings from the revolution launched in 1980 for an English language audience was limited until two avenues allowed for a wider distribution of translated material. Prior to these developments, small groups of sympathisers and internationalists had to seek out information about the struggle in Peru from specialist outlets and marginal groups, with the development of alternatives lines of communication information was democratised in the access and availability to an interested audience. These were the magazine A World To Win which published statements issued by the Communist Party of Peru and the emergence of an internet presence in 1996.
SPREADING THE WORD
It was relatively late into the struggle that translated printed material became available to a wider audience outside that of the academics and Spanish-speaking activists.
Luis Arce Borja – from El Diario Internacional published in 1989 [reprinting in 1994] the Spanish language volume, Guerra Populae en el Peru, El Pensamiento Gonzalothat collected the most important works of the CPP however some important text like the 1988 El Diario’s Interview of Chairman Gonzalo was missing from the selection, however it was circulated in pamphlet form. It was published by Committee to Support Revolution in Peru, Berkeley (1991). An earlier 156-paged English translation was produced (1989) by Red Banner Editorial House by the People’s Movement Peru of France but had a limited distribution. Likewise with the compilation CPP and Mao Tsetung published in December 1987 – the 95 paged booklet printed in the house-style using red ink.
The London-based Committee Sol Peru had Adolofo Olaechea translate a lecture given by Chairman Gonzalo and published in 1991 the pamphlet, “On the Rectification Campaign based on the study of the document ‘No to Elections! Yes to people’s War!”.
The American solidarity group, the Committee to Support the Revolution in Peru, published English translations of Develop Guerrilla Warfare issued nearly two years after the initiation of the armed struggle in May 1980, and Don’t Vote! issued in 1985 prior to the Peruvian elections. It was not until 2016, that the Utrecht-based Foreign Language Press publishing house produced the first volume of the Collected Works of the Communist Party of Peru covering the years 1968-1987. Three subsequent English-language volumes were planned. The associated website Redspark has the online access at http://library.redspark.nu/Communist_Party_of_Peru.
Promoted as the foremost MLM theoretician, Dr. Abimael Guzman Reynoso, was better known (before his arrest) by his nom de guerre President Gonzalo, chairman of the Central Committee of the CPP. Here Gonzalo Though was described as “the creative application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in Peru, and is, so far, the greatest attempt to develop the fourth stage of Marxism.”
While Redspark notes that “All writings of Communist Party of Peru between 1968 to 1992 are attributed to Chairman Gonzalo” since his arrest there have been internet statements and English-language pamphlets attributed to the Communist Party of Peru. Those produced by Ediciones Bandera Roja, and Français textes de langague are available from Les Éditions Soleil Rouge at http://www.bibliomarxiste.net/documents/perou/.
With “The Andes Roar” in its first issue in 1985, the RIM associated magazine, A World to Win, carried news, statements and commentary on the PCP up until its last edition in 2006. In print, this source was, as explored in part three, not so much as supplementary, but more contentious in relationship with small circulation newsletters of the various solidarity organisations – New Flag in the USA, the London-based Committee Sol Peru, Borca’s Brussels relaunch of El Diario International (EDI), the Spanish and English language editions of MPP’s Sol Rojo / Red Sun. Especially when much of this solidarity material migrated to find expression on sympathetic websites. A World to Win , the bulletin of the IEC and Peru Action and News were produced by the same stable of activists and publication ended when the patronage of the RCP, USA was eventually withdrawn.
A contemporary feature arose as a distinctly international Gonzaloist trend is now coalescing based partly on a common position expressed in the joint statement , Defend the Life of Chairman Gonzalo( Dec 31st, 2013) issued to mark the 21th anniversary of the speech, pronounced from a cage:
“In all these years, we have never given up the defense of this speech and of Chairman Gonzalo, the support to the PCP, and even today, while the People’s War in Peru suffers a phase of flexure and the Party struggles to overcome it, we support the Peruvian comrades who in Peru and abroad carry on the ideology and practice and the line of the People’s War pointed out by Chairman Gonzalo, as established in the 1st Congress of the Party”
However this trend does not embrace all who express support in defence of Gonzalo as theoretician of Maoism, as is the position of Marxist Leninist Maoist Center of Belgium, and Communist Party of France (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist), co-publishers of the online journal, Communism.
And there has been the recent appearance of PPM (RC) in opposition to Red Sun magazine of the Peru People’s Movement.
Among the multitude of English language websites providing news of the struggle in Peru, the question of authorial authenticity for pronouncements attributed to the Communist Party of Peru was far from settled.
SURFING THE WEB
Following Guzman’s capture, supporters created the International Emergency Committee to Defend the Life of Dr. Abimael Guzman (IEC) to raise awareness of his condition as a political prisoner with good reason given the Peruvian state’s murder of Sendero Luminoso prisoners.
The emergence in April 1996 of a website associated with a US –based solidarity group, New Flag meant that official documents of the Communist Party of Peru became instantly accessible worldwide, and distributors and readers would not risk reprisals. It provided a means to combat the state’s psychological warfare. What was publicised on the site showed that Party documents confirm, for instance, that the spokespeople for the PCP believed that Guzman’s letters and videoed TV appearance in 1993 — when, in an extraordinary jail cell volte face, he appeared to admit defeat and call for peace talks — were an elaborate hoax.
“Portraits of Marx, Lenin and Mao emerged like faded ghosts on to my aged black-and-white screen. Five buttons offered routes to “Frequently Asked Questions” about the “People’s War”, as well as to the party’s documents in Spanish and English, to back issues of New Flag and information on “President Gonzalo” — the nom de guerre of Shining Path’s founder and leader, Abimael Guzman.” [Simon Strong, Shining Path wages flame war. Financial Times, London: May 13 1996 p. 13]
This site emerged as an alternative source of information (and analysis) to the established Committee to Support the Revolution in Peru (CSRP) based in Berkeley, California, publishers of Peru Action & News and seen as a front for the RCP, USA headed by Robert Avakian.
While not an official site as such, Maura Conway’s study noted it had the aura of a “quasi-official nature…founded and maintained by supporters who appear to have no direct ties to the groups for whom they cheerlead.” [Maura Conway | Terrorist Web Sites: Their Contents, Functioning, and Effectiveness in Philip Seib (Ed.), Terrorism and the Media. New York: Palgrave (2005).]
Sympathizing Websites
As noted above, over the years, there have been a proliferation of Sendero related websites. There used to be just two. As internal disputes developed the dynamics of the Internet let many flowers bloom however some information and documents scanned were put on line by, say the « Maoist Document Project », on a website that does not exist anymore. There is an archive afterlife for some like the Maoist Internationalist Movement, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The CSRP site contained a section for ‘Documents of the Communist Party of Peru,’ which included numerous reports and declarations of the Central Committee, and issues of its own publication Peru Action and News, earliest available issue dated from summer 1997. Each newsletter was six to ten pages in length and contained political commentary, statements of the Committee to Support the Revolution in Peru (CSRP), news, and other information.
The site also had a large section devoted to the activities of the International Emergency Committee to Defend the Life of Dr. Abimael Guzmán (IEC) which contained reports, conference proceedings, published advertisements, leaflets, and emergency bulletins, while elsewhere on the site the text of Dr. Guzmán’s 1992 ‘Speech from a Cage’ was reproduced along with accompanying photographs.
Elsewhere on the Net in the 1990s, solidarity activists engage in flame wars — verbal lacerations — that range from the farcical to the deadly. These occur mainly on high-volume Marxism discussion lists managed from the University of Virginia in the US.
“Harriet” , one of the main protagonists signed her letters with his real name, Peruvian exile Adolfo Olaechea. According to Olaechea — who in absentia has been sentenced to life imprisonment in Peru — his country’s intelligence service participates, too. “They have used an account in Germany to send death threats in my name to try to create rifts.”
The high-velocity Net communication fanned endless splits among PCP’s international supporters and still to be found on mail archive sites are the contributions and acrimonious exchange on Marxism-General list dating from the mid-1990s onwards.
In September 1992, the Peruvian government issued a list of 49 people (many labelled “terrorist criminals”) and 39 organizations network in the United States and Europe As reported Lyndon LaRouche. What it did not discuss in its accompanying commentary on alleged PCP militants, highlighting the overall importance of the Paris-based exiles, were the animosity between the various individuals and often competing organisations. A major analytical flaw was in the assertion that the PCP “actually leads the RIM” whereas the dominance of the RCP USA was shortly to be clearly demonstrated.
One group of supporters abroad the (PPM) Peru People’s Movement’s claim the status of the only generated organ for the party work abroad, with the authority to be able to centralize any kind of support, or materialize a support work for the People’s War in Peru. Its main focus initially being calls the defense of the life of Chairman Gonzalo and later the exhortations to “Impose Maoism” as expressed in Gonzalo Thought and the practice of the Peruvian revolution. PPM’s statements adhere to Gonzalo’s pre-arrest positions and acts as publicist for statements from the Central Committee of the PCP.
The claim to sole leadership was in a confused environment when activists thought “it is not known which one is the Communist Party of Peru, much less who their representatives are abroad”, there are so many “MPP’s”, there are so many “Support Committees”, there are so many “movements who claim to support the people’s war”.
Via its website and publication of the same name, Red Sun, http://www.redsun.org, the Peru People’s Movement criticises
“grouplets of renegades and degenerates that in some cases join together and others of them who want to reestablish their fiefs with merely personal interests… these individuals and grouplets created their different fiefs and called themselves defenders or representatives of the Revolution in Peru: “MPP USA, New Flag”, “MPP Germany”, “MPP Sweden”, “MPP France”, “MPP Switzerland”, the RCP’s “Committee to Support the Revolution in Peru”, etc. Even LAB [Luis Arce Borja] failed to make his own “MPP” and afterward he also wanted to replace the RIM with his” World-wide Mobilization Call.” [Peru People’s Movement COMMUNIQUÉ August 2011]
Such division, PPM explained, “It is the plan of imperialism, the reaction and the new revisionism. And some infiltrators promote this, others want their fiefs like in the old days and others want to satisfy their low desires with trafficking.”
Malmö Maoist activist, Rolf Martens died on the 22nd of April 2008. He is buried at Limhamn’s cemetery.
His Wikipedia page notes he was Swedish chess champion in 1967 “and later, after I had learned some Marxism, made some “shocking” discoveries in its opening theory”. In fact there is a considerable literature on the Internet concerning his chess career and his contributions to chess theory.see https://www.365chess.com/players/Rolf_Martens
The entry notes – without elaborating that “he devoted himself to political activity, during which during the last 30 years of his life he stubbornly proclaimed an odd variant of Maoism”.
A former volunteer on the Marxists Internet Archive [M.I.A.], Martens was best known for his prolific publishing endeavours and internet engagement which was ironically described as “his personal big character poster board”.
Born in Norway in 1942, Martens moved in 1950 settling in Malmo the third-largest city in Sweden. He had a university degree with mathematics and physics, however was employed worked as a welder for 24 years. Rolf Martens worked as a welder at Åkermans workshop in Eslöv. He was an active trade unionist and over the years involved in various campaigns including the Swedish anti-EU-membership campaign; anti- racism demonstrations and counter-demonstrations; support group for DR Congo; and was pro-nuclear power [At Barsebäck in southern Sweden, less than 20km from Copenhagen,two reactors came on-line in the mid-70’s. The plant was the focus of domestic protest during the 1976 “nuclear elections” and the site of large demonstrations at the time of the 1980 Swedish nuclear referendum]. Martens was pro-nuclear energy hence the cyber reference to ‘nuclear viking’.
Marten’s political engagement had begun in 1972, first in the anti-Vietnam-war movement, and as Swedish Maoists played a key role in organizing anti-Vietnam War protests Martens embraced the vibrant Swedish Maoist movement. In 1972 he joined Kommunistiska Förbundet Marxist-Leninisterna (revolutionärerna), abbreviated KFML(r) – The Communist League Marxist-Leninists (the revolutionaries). It was founded in 1970 by a splinter group from the pro-Chinese KFML. He was excluded from it after only two years. In 1974, Matens published “Dokument om kampen mot de pseudo-marxister, som vill undertrycka marxismen-leninismen och arbetar den sovjetiska socialimperialismen i händerna” [Document about the fight against the pseudo-marxists who want to suppress Marxism-Leninism and work hand-in-hand with Soviet social imperialism].
He recalls, “I was inexperienced in 1974, and in the then struggle made many mistakes, both of the “Left” sectarian type and of the Right opportunist one, and, not least, at first had difficulties in seeing how I, as only one individual, could successfully combat the then “KFML(r)” which, after all, in the 1973 parliamentary elections in Sweden (voters: 5 million), had received some 16 000 votes. But I didn’t land with the Right opportunists either (e.g. a “fraternal party” to the CPC called the “SKP” which later went with Deng and then disappeared in the early ’80s)”.
In 1974 Martens came under the influence of Hartmut Dicke (Klaus Sender) of the KPD/ML (NEUE EINHEIT), in self-exile in Malmö, Sweden, at the time due to persecution in West Germany.
A memoir on his webpage stated that he “endeavoured, and still am endeavouring, to act as an individual representative of Marxism in Sweden, of course always striving to contribute towards the creation of a genuinely Marxist-Leninist party in this country. In May 1975, I started publishing a series of leaflets (mainly) in Swedish, the INFORMATIONSBLAD series… from late 1974 on, I’ve participated in various organizations and coalitions of a united-front type, for causes which I’ve held it important to support.”
There were Martens’ disputes within the Sweden-China Friendship Committee. He was expelled from the Malmö chapter of the Swedish Palestine solidarity committee in 1983 which saw an explanatory text published, “A position on the Palestina Group congress in 1983”. Martens was critical of the role played by Rob Weltman – then the most influential leading member of the PGS, an organization in Sweden – “pointing out, and publicly proving, that Rob Weltman was working for forces wishing to subvert the PGS. For this I was kicked out”.
And in April 1990 Martens broke with the “bourgeois” KPD/ML (NEUE EINHEIT) it seems around the issue of their perceived lack of opposition to what the hostile KPD/ML described as “the Green and Alternative swindlers and so-called Ecologist movement”
The KPD/ML (NEUE EINHEIT), complained that Martens, a former member, kept publishing on the internet libels about the organization, at the same time trying to give the impression that he still has some connection with them, and was publishing articles and unauthorized translations of publications from Neue Eineit without permission.
“He only represents himself.” – NEUE EINHEIT Extra Nr.27 from Aug 15th 1996
1) ” Leve 1 Maj” [Albertslund (Denmark),01 May 1996; 7 pages]; 2) “Forsvar Formand Gonzalos Liv!” [ Albertslund, 1996, 1 page]; 3) “Declaration Concerning Certain Suspicions” [2 copies: Malmö, 27 April 1995, 1 page, 2 sides (“to the editors of El Diario Internacional,are the anonymous leaders of the RIM agents of the CIA or not?”)]; 4) “To the Coordinating Committee.[Malmö, 12 April 19 94; 1 page, 2 sides]; 5) ” International Call to Action 20-21 May 1994″ [1 page, 2 sides]; 6) “Al Comité Coordinador” [Spanish edition of nr. 4; 1 2 April 1994]; 7) “A Proposal to Convene a Plenary Meeting of the Steering Committee of the IEC”[Malmö, 02 February 1995, 1 page, 2 sides]; 8) “Fö rklarung” [Malmö, July 1995; 1 page, 2 sides]; “Videovisning: You Must Tell the World” [Malmö, 1994, 1 page]
From late 1995 on, Martens was posting to Internet newsgroups and mailing lists, in English, Swedish and some other languages, among other things publishing “UNITE! (etc) Info” series.
UNITE! /VEREINIGT EUCH!/UNISSEZ-VOUS!/!UNIOS!/
FOERENA ER! Info en/de/fr/es/se series
Advocates the political line of Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong. Each
item # will be posted in one or more language(s).
Still to be found on mail archive sites are Rolf Marten’s multi-part instalments contributions dating from the mid-1990s onwards.….
Martens’ disputes were not simply restricted to the internet although Louis Proyect recall that he had to unsub Rolf at least 2 times from Marxmail, and former Chairman of the RCLB, Chris Burford waited in vain for Martens to apologise for Martens labelling him a cop in an acrimonious exchange on Marxism-General list in 1997. Burford, eventually a member of Democratic Left, called for Martens withdraw from the list, explaining:
He stirs up unprincipled disputes. He appears to be unable to cooperate with a group sharing his political aims in Sweden, and there have been references to his falling out with a number of groups. Here on the internet despite regarding the Communist Party of Peru as having significant petty bourgeois tendencies he fanned a flame war against one supporter of that party in support of another group, one of whose members he now describes as a “swindler” and another as “lying”.
Despite apparently attempting to set up a new international on the internet according to the principles of Mao Zedong (who did not believe in an international) he appears singularly ignorant of Mao’s advice about not making personal attacks but enjoys name calling and appears to try to promote it. This might just be a childish pleasure in puns, but the role of police agents in causing divisions is well established, including their tendency to call others agents to distract attention from themselves and add to the confusion and distrust.
From: Chris Burford <cburford-AT-gn.apc.org>
Subject: M-G: Just a general without soldiers?
29 Jul 1997 06:47:09 +0100
Actually in the real world neither of them were undercover cops!
These exchanges were not unusual in the febrile atmosphere that passed for political dialogue at that time. Martens recalled “… some sharp exchanges recently on the Jefferson Village Virginia Marxism list, where I condemned the 1979-1988 flagrant aggression against Afghanistan by Soviet social-imperialism and certain people very heatedly *defended* that aggression” .
Others who populated the internet lists would respond to “the Swedish individual Rolf Martens who does not even claim to uphold Hua Guofeng while still supporting his arrest of the “Gang of Four” and still claiming to oppose Deng Xiaoping. When asked [by MIM] who concretely he supported if not Hua Guofeng, Rolf Martens has no one to mention, only Mao, who was already dead.”
A flavour of Marten’s analysis and argumentation can be found in (these reformatted) pieces
On the Internet even the marginal can be on somebodies favourite list even if little known outside the orbit of their own ego. Not all individual commentators should be categorised together or warrant the attention they receive; their value may be entertainment rather than thought provoking. But sometimes you cannot but follow the white rabbit down the hole…..
The political genealogy of the Leading Light Communist Organization is in various small, mostly Maoist North American groups, with much of the core idea goes back to the mid-1990s from early shaping experiences with MIM, It’s Right to Rebel “think tank” experience and web journal, Monkey Smashes Heaven. There was political work in Mexico, without really establishing deep roots, along the way. There was a fifteen year development as “the best of the best, warrior geniuses” developed “Maoist-Third Worldist” positions as “the new line we were creating.” From Denver USA the first group calling itself Leading Light Communist Organisation was formed in 2010. Bibliographical background, mostly an unverifiable account was supplied in an interview with fellow LLCO member in 2017.
Internet criticism on Redditt of LLCO that “long story short, the Leading Light Communist Organization really has nothing besides a nice website” had the unsatisfyingly self-serving reply from a supporter of the clandestine organization, “Prairie Fire” that “I doubt any answer I give will satisfy you. If you don’t see the light, you don’t see it. The advanced do see it.”
Eventually the anonymity of “Prairie Fire” gave way to the self-aggrandisement that saw the self-publishing website Lulu carry the endorsement that:
Brennen Ryan, “Leading Light,” “Prairie Fire,” “El Hector,” is one of the most important theorists of revolution in our age. His works span many topics ranging from political economy to epistemology to environmentalism to history to aesthetics. He has been described as “the Marx of the present epoch.”
Stalwart and founder-leader of the Leading Light Communist Organization, Brennen Ryan’s self-identifying revolutionary genius is based on thin ground: he has put into the public domain a couple of pieces of secondary research work largely hung around the line struggles in Maoist China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, principally Seas are rising, Clouds and Waters Raging, but more generally produces writings of a preacher’s revivalist tone with bald assertions that soon become ritualistic frequent. However, the emphasis of self-cultivation – to live according to our best selves – speaks with a voice that seemingly has an audience in Bangladesh and Ghana, and has a friend in fellow sensation-in-his-own-mind Jason of Maoist Rebel News (so far not prosecuted under the Trade Description Act).
Brennen’s analysis, rooted in the idea of the global rich versus the global poor, built upon a sense that the world is deeply unjust and is informed by an analysis of the class struggle in China in the Sixties particularly when
“Lin Biao died in 1971. China’s support for people’s wars around the world is replaced by an opportunistic, nationalist calculation not unlike the Soviet revisionist one. China begins aligning with the Western imperialists. This nationalist opportunism is sometimes associated with a doctrine called “Three Worlds Theory,” but the theory was really just window dressing for the practice.”
Brennen said of Seas are rising, Clouds and Waters Raging, “the book traces the development of not just the Cultural Revolution ideology of the Maoists, but also the dual institutions that allowed the Maoists to bypass and challenge the traditional, bureaucratic chains of command. Once examined closely, it is hard to imagine how the Cultural Revolution could have happened without Lin Biao.”
A position not dissimilar to some bourgeois scholars of the Cultural Revolution, who also acknowledge – as did Mao – that there was no masterplan that unraveled and the accidental nature of the developments driven by the mass movements involved. And he is not the first to raise the point that “Obviously there is a lot of deception going on in the post-Lin Biao Maoist narratives.”
“There are a couple reasons I have focused on Lin Biao in my work. The first reason is that Lin Biao was a revolutionary. He represented some of the best of the Maoist era. He symbolized the Cultural Revolution and worldwide people’s war. That’s good stuff. Secondly, I view Lin Biao as a kind of barometer. How you view Lin Biao really reflects whether you are stuck in the dogma of police narratives and metaphysics or whether you have genuine scientific potential. If you are afraid to question dogma, then you are not very useful to the proletariat. If you are comfortable with dogma, injustice, police narratives, etc., then, again, you are not really leadership, vanguard, Leading Light material.”
His message contains reasonable, logical and pertain observations like
“We cannot reform our way to revolution. Revolution is a deep, fundamental reorganization of all of society, it means disempowering the reactionary classes. It means empowering the revolutionary classes” and
The next wave of revolution is not going to be made by dogmatically repeating the past. We need to learn from the past, but also go beyond it. Those who are stuck in the past really do a disservice to the masses”
Brennen argues in the same vein as earlier Third worldist trends that extended the concept of a Labour Aristocracy to embrace all working people geographically located in the Global North regardless of their local relationship to the means of productions and actual standard of consumption in a “Global Class Analysis” that echoes Lin Biao’s “global countryside” that opposed a “global city.” Leading Light’s line is not that there is no proletariat in the First World countries. Rather that there is no significant proletariat in the First World countries.
“In fact, the last century of revolution has taught us that revolution will happen in the weakest links of the system, on the edges of global economic power. Lenin’s prediction that the storm center of world revolution moving eastward came to past. Mao spoke of the east wind prevailing over the west wind. Today, the entire world economy is a single entity. Understanding the question of friends and enemies, Mao’s first question requires a class analysis that is truly global. It is not just First World capitalists who are reactionary enemies, but most people in the First World. Ordinary people in the First World have far more to lose than their chains. They have wealth, privileges, houses, cars, electronics, security, leisure, opportunities, mobility. They have access to capital. They have social wealth, infrastructure, land, modern institutions. Ordinary people in the First World do not have a class interest in revolution.”
Amongst the sensible soundbites there are the messianic expression of a medieval true believer in revelatory truth.
“After much difficulty, we continue to assemble the greatest revolutionary minds and hearts alive. The most thoughtful, the most daring, the most caring will be with us. We are Leading Lights, the warriors, the martyrs. We are the Leading Light, the organization of the new type to initiate the Global People’s War, to purge the world of all suffering, so that a new humanity and land will flourish. Our future is our own because we have the science, the leadership, the organization, the loyalty, the discipline, the daring, the courage to really win. There is an oath, a command that we have written on our souls: One Earth. One people. One organization. One leadership. One life to give. My life for the masses, for the land, for the Leading Light.”
Like the Avakianists and their “New Synthesis,” Brennen claims that Leading Light Communism represents a new breakthrough in revolutionary science, one that makes previous ones obsolete. The appeal of Maoism said to be that it romanticises guerrilla struggles in the third world in a pseudo-intellectual rhetoric which suggest a shallow understanding of what constitutes Maoism. So they claim to transcend their ideological roots in Maoism and regard those who still have an identification with it as part of the ideological opposition. Brennen sees the left as stuck in dogma. In 2011, writing as Prairie Fire he criticised the experienced Communist Party of the Philippines as
“armed revisionists. While they may be landing some blows against imperialism, they are not communists. Besides being completely dead intellectually, they are crude dogmatists, especially Jose Maria Sison.”
He is equally dismissive and critical of the newly emerged radical First-World based Maoists and Gonzaloist trends:
“The idea that Maoism is some kind of “third, higher stage” is not a new idea. Many Maoists today think this “new stage” stuff is from Gonzalo in Peru. It isn’t. Before Gonzalo was talking this way, India’s Charu Majumdar was. And Charu Majumdar just got it from his contemporaries in China. The idea goes back to Maoist discourse that was popularized in the mid and late 1960s. The “new stage” idea is specifically from Lin Biao. It is mentioned over and over in such obscure texts as the original introduction to Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong. Yes, the “red book.” It is even in Lin Biao’s “Report to the Ninth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party” in 1969. The inability to deal with history honestly is part of the comical nature of Maoism today.”
I think of Maoism a lot like Maoists once used to think of Hoxhaism, as “dogmatic revisionism.” I see it as a dead trend and a dead end.
LLCO has produced a body of literature to substantiate its Third Worldist political orientation. The Maoist adjective now dropped.
A free introductory booklet, Forward! breaks down the basics of Leading Light Communism. It addresses many of the most frequently asked questions, and advises that “All new cadre and supporters should familiarize themselves with these answers. These answers are the beginning of knowledge, not the end. Keep advancing. Prove yourself. Follow the Leading Light all the way. Be the Leading Light.”
Publish in various languages, illustration is AVANTE: Questões Frequentes parte 1: O que é a Luz Guiadora?” is Frequently Asked Questions of LLCO in Portuguese.
Other publications include the Leading Light magazine that focuses on a main topic. See https://llco.org/study/
Leading Light 1: The General Line
Leading Light 2: Science In Command
Leading Light 3: Orientation
Leading Light 4: Revolutionary History
Leading Light 5: Practice
Available in various languages including Bengali e.g.
A theoretical publication, Monkey Smashes Heaven saw two issues consisting of reprints of web-based articles attributed to “Prairie Fire”. In addition there are
We are proud to announce the publication of Casting Pearls: philosophy, science, art, revolution by Leading Light Commander Prairie Fire. This work outlines some of the biggest breakthroughs in contemporary revolutionary science, Leading Light Communism. This volume also contains important, significant, unpublished materials. All over the world, the revolutionary movement is discovering the importance of science once again. From Bangladesh to Brazil, from Myanmar to Germany, from India to Canada, from Mexico to Russia, from the Philippines to the United States the masses are waking up. It is a must read for all those who seek a better world.
By whatever name he goes by, Brennen is offering the world an answer. He is confident and full of self-belief similar to other American leaders whose ideas and practice of leadership stem from privilege and entitlement. So far less people have bought into the version of LLCO that is being marketed via the world wide web.
“I embrace the best in all the Leading Lights of the past. In that sense, I am a Marxist, a Leninist, a Maoist, and a Lin Biaoist. However, that is not all that I am. Not only do I embrace what is the best in the revolutionary tradition, I embrace the most advanced breakthroughs today. I am a Leading Light Communist, a revolutionary scientist. Truth, as best as it can be understood, is my great leader.”
“…as Leading Lights, we are condemned to lead. We carry the world on our shoulders. We need to understand the past, but if we are to have victory, we must go beyond it. Elevate the science. Advance the science. Science. Science. Science. Leading Light Communism is the key to the future, our great destiny.”
Unverified Afternote
The website Soviet Broadcast posted this item:
April 20 2019, 11:12 AM
For those unaware former figurehead of the LLCO Prairie Fire (Hector) passed away on April 18th due to a heroin overdose.
The ending of the internet blog, Signalfire received some harsh comments from fellow bloggers. Within the realm of cybermaoism, the attitude was largely dismissive.
The UK-based Democracy ad Class Struggle said “Signalfire was never our ideological friend – they had a very different conception of Maoism from us”.
The response from Akram Guzman of Red Guards Austin in America was more vehemently hostile writing of “deserters and traitors to the ideology, those types were ideologically weak to begin with and had a lack of communist discipline, strong currents of individualism.” A longer commentary – Farewell Signalfire was posted August 16, 2016 because “This vile and opportunist behavior merits such a pointed response.”
One French opinion described its demise as “a pathetic failure from an American blog [that] played a very negative role…. its disappearing is a very good thing and the expression of the advance of class struggle.”
Truthfully, the blog was useful for a while. It covered international armed struggles, signposting the struggle particularly in India that got scant media coverage elsewhere during the last few years. Good Morning Left Side provided a good summary of the main weakness of the blog’s coverage:
“Signalfire used to be a useful source of information; but, on the other hand, it kept this bad habit of posting pieces and documents from various opportunistic/reformist groups as well as revolutionary ones, mixing them without much critical comments. The main source of their information was mainstream medias, which tended to give a cops outlook on revolutionary movements, especially in India. Okay, “x naxalites and x policemen had been killed today” but what really matters is the development of the movement and its struggles.”
Signalfire website was described in the last post as “always been the personal project of a single individual in the United States since it began its current incarnation five years ago.” This is a real dilemma, that internet activism – as the sole focus, means people with time on their hands, with even a moderate flair in IT and who are obsessive enough – can seem to have an online presence and influence way beyond their actual contribution to the lives of any actual ordinary real world people. A web presence, in conjunction with an organisational life, can mobilise and intervene in real life struggles. However blog life, while sometimes making interesting or useful observation, is essentially (at best) educational, and individualistic in nature reflecting all the weaknesses of that contribution. Without the input of collective practice and criticism, the tempering and intellectual challenges of engagement in the raw reality of class struggle, it reverts to a petty-bourgeois vehicle reminiscent of the “star commentator” of mainstream media. Their individual prejudices, obsessions and judgements can be entertaining but they do not make a movement.
Signalfire stated, “I no longer consider the so called “International Communist Movement” with its proliferation of cultish microsects and blind worship of failed past movements to be worth promoting.”
Signalfire never drew the demarcation line between the different sources it drew upon to publicise in the copied and pasted posts about “Maoism” and the People’s War in India. It provided information to highlight struggles that often would argue the universality of Maoism as the third and highest stage of Marxism and have aspirations that included the continuation of protracted people’s war, some would extend this to argue Protracted People’s War is the universal revolutionary strategy for progress to the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the continuation of revolution through socialism to communism. As a website it signposted struggles rather than advocated a specific strategic advance, and nor should one expect such a perspective from its internationalist coverage. Solidarity cannot dictate strategy and tactics for those struggling elsewhere. In the final conclusion, its criticism is not the criticism of comrades.
OK what constitute the International Communist Movement?
In 2016 Maoism does not rely on or look to a leading party or struggle to substitute for own endeavours. Elsewhere Canadian blogger philosopher raised the perspective that Maoism is truly a 21st Century phenomenon, and it is extremely doubtful it will consolidate all those forces that self-identify as Maoist. Numerous internet posted joint statements point to ideological alignments and co-thinkers that have branched out of a Maoist orientation that take on a specific characterisation as “Gonzalist”, “Lin Biaoist”, or an organisational structure or reflective of bi-lateral support for struggles elsewhere e.g. ICOR or former Revolutionary Internationalist Movement groups opposed to the ‘Avakarinist’ developments in the RCP, USA.
When Signalfire describes Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as a theological idealism based upon a mythologization of the Cultural Revolution there are examples that can be cited in evidence. An uncritical approach to that experience is certainly one error in approaching the struggles of today. The Cultural Revolution failed, it does not offer a model but elements within – supervision from below – should be built upon in the struggles today. The importance of that episode was reaffirmed with 40th anniversary statements by various MLM organisations; the evaluation of that experience would be a contested arena for comradely debate.
Contrary to the assertion of Signalfire, the Maoist spirit is far from conservative, it is in practice a critique from the Left that had to make a rupture with “Stalinist” position when challenging modern revisionism in communist practices. It did take on a theological aspect during the Cultural Revolution that were adopted in the immature addictive European movement. However that was challenged and altered in practice if not consolidated in criticism/theory.
There has been different trajectories by organisations then rooted in the anti-revisionist movement and the evolution of some organisations into “cultish microsects” as critics of the RCP,USA are prone to describe the Robert Avakaian fanclub, should not be taken as (a) a component of a self-declared international movement, or (b) representative of the politics and behaviour of that ICM. There is no typical example or template that constitutes what is essentially organisations relating to a shared ideology and political perspectives. The struggle in the Philippines is led by a self-declared MLM party of decades of experiences, in India there are contending approaches by self-identifying Maoist organisations including the CPI Maoist engaged in an armed struggle.
Elsewhere critical summations of lessons of Peru and Nepal are still needed of what are diminished but unfinished struggles. With India, the complexities, even of the CPI(Maoist) struggle will take on a temporary character as analysis and judgements are modified in light of the practice and direction of those struggles. Comrades actively studying those struggles require a collective effort, and an international input rather than assertion.
The accusation of organisations publishing hallucinatory statements is one that can be employed in any sphere of political reporting, subject to the exigencies of the situation, it is not desirable but understandable. The African revolutionary Cabral laid down the line: claim no easy victories. The state of the struggle in India is complex with different strands, and to identify – at this early stage – one organisation ideologically close to one’s own position proves tempting, yet too fetish one aspect is un-Maoist – after all, People’s war is a beginning stragem.
Broad criticism that this supposed homogenous movement has wallow in the metaphysics of the cult, again can be seen as a specific criticism of specific organisations like Peru People’s Movement embroiled in its own specific culturally features – the emphasis on the importance of personalised leadership, and the militarisation of the embryo party etc. Again the example does not make the rule: the isolation of that trend, within what could be generously described as the broad movement, illustrates a singular observation that would not apply to other organisation.
Signalfire’s position that the cultish sectarianism of the “International Communist Movement” is not only irrelevant to the class struggle in most countries in which it exists it is also an obstacle to any serious global united front against fascism and repression in India mashes together two distinct criticisms: that the behaviour of these groups isolate themselves from any domestic audience, and that whatever activity they are engaged in is counter-productive to an international solidarity campaign. Given the embryonic stage that domestic solidarity campaign are at, the grandiose criticism that they are hindering a global united front is indeed a hallucinatory statement.
A specific criticism that Western Maoism is simply irrelevant serves to present the picture, not of movements based on the theoretical foundation of MLM, but geographical specific development somehow separate in nature from a universalist political position. The belief that the conditions in the Global South negate the oppression in the industrialised world has led many individuals away from Maoist positions into adopting various strands of Third Worldism e.g. KAK and LLCO. The organisations of Western Europe shared common perceptions and objectives in their political practice with co-thinkers through the world. [see State of the Movement 1976-97]. Not withstanding the chequered history of the movement in Western Europe, there are still MLM movements emerging in Europe, such as the French Maoist party , PCMF and the Norwegian Tjen Folket. The disparity in strength and experience and resources throughout the bi-lateral relationships that are developing serves to underline the party-building task at hand. But Maoism –let’s not mislead anyone, always a marginal Left force in the west – contains precepts and approaches that can be core to any fightback.
As a project Signalfire is replaceable, already Redspark (http://www.redspark.nu/) fills the information void with what can be described as a more ideologically coherent approach.
Signalfire’s Letter from your Editorprovides an explanation that there are other projects I consider politically important to which I am choosing to devote my time. As an individual we all have that ability to choose whatever takes our fancy; the organisational discipline that leads us to work methodically for a greater collective end is absent. We can make individual analysis of what is worth promoting without the critical gaze and input of others. Individually we can produce judgements that There is no easy alternative answer, simply the necessity of systematic and rigorous theoretical work beginning from the basic materialist premises and united with modest and serious intervention in social reality. And then step back from the tasks at hand.
“In all these years, we have never given up the defense of this speech and of Chairman Gonzalo, the support to the PCP, and even today, while the People’s War in Peru suffers a phase of flexure and the Party struggles to overcome it, we support the Peruvian comrades who in Peru and abroad carry on the ideology and practice and the line of the People’s War pointed out by Chairman Gonzalo, as established in the 1st Congress of the Party”
Leading Light Communism. This volume also contains important, significant, unpublished materials. All over the world, the revolutionary movement is discovering the importance of science once again. From Bangladesh to Brazil, from Myanmar to Germany, from India to Canada, from Mexico to Russia, from the Philippines to the United States the masses are waking up. It is a must read for all those who seek a better world.
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