Maoism in the Developed World

The ACWM soon took the name Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists. It proclaimed its allegiance to Albania. Thus, in an article entitled “Socialist Albania—A Country Free of Exploitation of Man by Man,” its periodical proclaimed that Today, the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania is the red fortress of socialism in the world. … In what lies the great significance of this small socialist country in the middle of Europe?… The eyes of the working class and the oppressed people of all countries see in socialist Albania their future, the model of the new society which they too are struggling to achieve. … Most significantly, the Albanian working class and people are building their new society, their free, prosperous and happy life without the capitalist exploiters or any other parasites, who live off the blood and sweat of the working people.”[99]

On January 1, 1980, the COUSML became the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA. The Workers’ Advocate proclaimed that “In the midst of the work of the Founding Congress, at 11:50 P.M. on December 31, 1979, the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists (COUSML), the militant nucleus of the party whose work prepared the conditions for the Founding Congress, was dissolved. At 12:01 a.m. on January 1st, followed by jubilant celebration, the birth of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the U.S. (MLP-USA) was proclaimed.[100]

The MLP-USA established fraternal relations with pro Albanian groups in other countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Iran and New Zealand.[101] The MLP-USA survived into the 1990s.

Conclusion

Most of the Maoist groups of the United States in the 1970s emerged from the New Left of the previous decade. Rejecting the inchoate, semi-anarchist proclivities of much of the New Left, they endorsed Maoism and the Chinese regime as their guide and inspiration. However, there was little effort to unite these disparate groups proclaiming allegiance to Maoism, and with the various shifts in Chinese “line” and personnel, the different Maoist groups reacted quite differently, some endorsing the new Chinese leadership, others proclaiming solidarity with the Gang of Four and still others joining the Albanian dissidence in International Maoism.

Canadian Maoism

Canadian Maoism appeared almost as soon as the Chinese Communist Party began to seek to split away their own followers from the traditional Communist parties to form specifically pro-Chinese groups. Subsequently, however, Canadian Maoism gave rise to at least four different groups, each of which tended to have what support it achieved from a different part of Canada. As the Chinese party and government changed their policies in the 1970s, the Canadian Maoist organizations veered off in different directions as a response to the zig-zags of the Chinese.

Progressive Workers Movement

The oldest of the Canadian Maoist groups was the Progressive Workers Movement (PWM). It was founded late in 1964 under the leadership of Jack Scott, who had recently been expelled from the Canadian Communist Party for his pro-Peking proclivities. Its principal center of operations was in the western province of British Columbia. According to the Canadian Trotskyist periodical Workers Vanguard, the PWM experienced “a brief interlude of rapid growth, mostly through regroupment of older left-wing elements from the decaying B.C. [British Columbia] Communist Party and from the CCF-NDP [Cooperative Commonwealth Federation-New Democratic Party],” but then “entered a period of attrition and decline.”

The new Maoist party “attacked the Communist party leadership for its liberal-reformist politics and its crass Canadian nationalist line. PWM attacked the CP record of supporting the wartime ‘no strike pledge’ and its call for a ‘Liberal-labor coalition’ in support of Mackenzie King in 1944. They blamed these class-collaborationist politics on the American Communist Party leader of that period, Earl Browder.”

The PWM was avowedly Stalinist as well as Maoist. At its first public meeting in December 1964, it featured a large portrait of Stalin.

The Progressive Workers Movement strongly attacked all other elements on the Canadian Left. It “dismissed title New Democratic Party as a capitalist party,” and “called upon all ‘genuine’ socialists to leave the NDP and join the PWM.” It also violently attacked the principal Trotskyist group of the period, the League for Socialist Action.

Pursuing its anti-NDP line, the PWM entered a candidate in the 1965 federal election against a local Vancouver NDP parliamentary nominee. The PWM put up Jerry Le Bourdais, president of the local affiliate of the Oil Workers International Union and a member of the Vancouver Labor Council executive committee. The PWM nominee received 300 votes in contrast to the several thousand received by the NDP candidate.