Maoism in the Developed World

The first national Maoist organization in France was the Federation of Marxist-Leninist Circles in France (Federation des Cercles Marxistes-Leninistes en France), which was established in July 1964. It held its first congress in June 1966, reportedly attended by 150 delegates, the average age of whom was 30 years. That meeting changed the name of the group to the French Communist Movement, Marxist-Leninist (MCF-ML), chose a 25-member central committee, 12 members of a political bureau and a four-person secretariat. These last four were Raymond Casas, Jacques Jurquet, Francois Marty and Marc Tiberat. The Congress also chose Regis Bergeron as editor of L’Humanite Nouvelle, the Movement’s monthly paper, which in October was converted into a weekly.

A manifesto issued by the congress claimed, among other things, that “modern revisionism had ruined the PCF.” Although professing to see some positive aspects in President De Gaulle’s ongoing quarrel with the United States, it said that the French president’s position had not brought anything positive because De Gaulle was still “aligned with the monopolists.”

The first Maoist congress in France declared solidarity with the Chinese party and those of Albania, Indonesia, North Vietnam, and the Communist Party of Belgium, Marxist-Leninist. It characterized Mao Tse-tung as being the “Lenin of our time.” Two months later, a delegation of the Movement visited China and was received by Kang Sheng, a Chinese Politburo member in charge of the party’s international relations. Upon the return of the delegation, the Central Committee of the MCF-ML strongly endorsed the Cultural Revolution, which was just getting under way, declaring it to be a “great leap forward in all spheres” and that it would “consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat.”[153]

The Peking Review devoted half a page to the French Maoist congress. Among other things, it noted that “While exposing the revisionists of the French Communist Party, the congress pointed out that today the French working class needs a politically conscious and militant vanguard to show it the road. The Congress affirmed the determination to build a ‘new type Party’ as required by the great Lenin, a Party of the Bolshevik type basing its action on the immortal theory of Marxism and Leninism and the thought of Comrade Mao-Tse-tung, the great teacher of world revolution.”[154]

Only a few months after the founding of the PCMLF there took place the student-worker uprising of May 1968, which almost overthrew the regime of President Charles De Gaulle. Like all of the other far Left groups, the PCMLF played some role in these events. Subsequently, Jacques Jurquet maintained that “It is not the Marxist-Leninists who initiated the student revolt. On the other hand, their role in the launching of the strikes with factory occupations was assuredly not negligible.” When barricades were raised on the night of May 10, party members were involved in this and the PCMLF claimed that “Some twenty of our party’s comrades were wounded, two of them seriously.” As a consequence of its participation in the May events, the Parti Comuniste Marxiste Leniniste de France was one of several organizations that were officially outlawed by a June 12, 1968 decree of the De Gaulle government.[155]

Although officially outlawed, this Maoist group continued to function more or less clandestinely. Although its periodical L’Humanite Nouvelle was suppressed, it quickly appeared as the weekly L’Humanite Rouge, and Jacques Jurquet, Ramon Casa and Francois Marty were publicly associated with the new paper.

During the post-1968 period, the PCMLP group was calling for the establishment of a new “revolutionary trade union movement.” It also continued to strongly attack the PCF and its trade union group, the Confederation Generate du Travail (CGT) as well as carrying on polemics with another Maoist group centering on the publication La Cause du Peuple. In December 1969, Jacques Jurquet headed a delegation that visited China.[156]

The PCMLF suffered serious internal dissension during 1970. Its paper commented that “Division—a weapon long wished on us by our enemies—has penetrated everywhere in our ranks, even to the level of our principal spokesmen.” Its “political and financial status” was reported by L’Humanite Rouge to be “very serious,” particularly due to the loss of student readers. The Trotsyite paper Rouge claimed that there were five or six factions within the PCMLF and that some of the party’s members has joined competing Maoist groups. However, the party clearly continued to enjoy the “Chinese franchise” and its publication was cited from time to time by Chinese newspapers and news services.[157]