Maoism in the Developed World

In 1970, the Pompidou government cracked down on the Proletarian Left. In April, the editors of its paper, Jean-Pierre Le Dantec and Michel Le Bris, were arrested and a warrant was issued for Alan Geismar. At a meeting on May 25 to protest the trial of the two editors, which had the backing of almost all far Left groups, Jean-Paul Sartre presided, and subsequently Sartre assumed the post of editor of La Cause du Peuple. The publisher and bookstore proprietor Francois Maspero was indicted for stocking La Cause du Peuple in his bookstore.[178]

Le Dantec and Le Bris were sentenced to one year and eight months in jail and Geismar, who was arrested on June 25, was sentenced to eighteen months in prison for inciting to riot. A month later, Geismar was also convicted of continuing the activities of the illegal Gauche Proletarienne and given two more years sentence.[179]

The government suppressed La Cause du Peuple, whereupon the GP began publishing L’Idiot International, and then in January 1971 a new monthly, J’Accuse, described as having “the same spirit as La Cause du Peuple, being oriented towards workers, but was better edited.” J’Accuse was “under the patronage of Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean-Luc Godard and Simone de Beauvoir.” When the editors of La Cause du Peuple were released in January 1971, that paper appeared once again, and a few months later it absorbed J’Accuse, but Jean-Paul Sartre continued to be the editor.

In June 1971, the government cracked down again on the GP, as well as some Trotskyite organizations and publications. Sartre was jailed for libel.[180]

Groups and individuals belonging to Gauche Proletarienne undoubtedly also belonged to groups that carried out a variety of violent acts in the early 1970s. The most spectacular of these was the kidnapping of Robert Nogrette, an assistant personnel director of the Renault auto factory near Paris, carried out by what called itself the New Popular Resistance, in March 1972. This took place four days after the funeral of a worker, Rene-Pierre Overney, who apparently belonged to the GP, since Alan Geismar was the principal speaker at the funeral. Virtually all other far Left groups condemned the kidnapping, and Nogrette was released after two days.[181]

The Gauche Proletarienne also used the name Parti Communiste Revolutionnaire,[182] and it was under this name that it was known by the late 1970s. By that time, it had abandoned practicing violence, although presumably still officially advocating it.

As we have noted, it had by 1978 begun to participate in electoral activity, running joint candidates with the PCMLF that year. Efforts in the following year to merge it with the PCMLF did not finally bear fruit.

The Mao Spontaneist Groups

One final group of French Maoists must also be mentioned. These were referred to as “Mao-spontaneists” or sometimes just “Les Maos.” Most were offshoots of the Union of Communist Youth, Marxist-Leninist, and at least some maintained at least tenuous ties with its successor, Gauche Proletarienne. But they had an aversion to central direction and leadership that bordered on a kind of romantic anarchism.

One of the few attempts to give some central leadership to these people was the group called Long Live the Revolution (Vive la Revolution—VLR). Its short career was described by Kay McKeough. She said that it “was formed in July 1969 by dissident ex-UFCML members. It functioned in Paris, particularly at universities, under the leadership of Roland Castro. With the slogan, To Change Life/ VLR attracted various Maoists groups, all advocates of ‘spontaneity’ and believers in immediate revolution. A fortnightly publication, Tout, summarized VLR views: ‘What do we want? Everything.’ In the fall of 1970 VLR reoriented itself and chose a nondirected, loose structure. In April 1971 it dissolved: ‘We are no longer going to proclaim the revolution, we are going to make it. … We are beginning to take ourselves seriously.’ Tout last appeared in July. ‘Autonomous units of struggle’ have been set up in local communities.”[183]

The New York Times found “Les Maos” of interest enough to carry a substantial article about them by Keith Botsford in its Magazine in September 1972. Botsford had interviewed a substantial number of these Maoist-spontaneists.

One of those he interviewed told Botsford about their methods of organization. That informant said that “We meet a lot in small groups, in which everyone carries it out. Until everyone agrees, there is no decision. And if there are some in the end who don’t agree, then they’re not Mao. Of course, there are people who coordinate all the small groups … as with any relatively small and dedicated group, there are some who are more active, more capable, more militant. These rise spontaneously from below.”[184]