Maoism in the Developed World

By the early 1970s, the Maoists had formed the Workers and Peasants Party. In November 1974, sixteen of its leaders were reported as being arrested by the Turkish police. At about the same time, the pro-Moscow Communist Party of Turkey announced as one of its objectives “to wage continuous struggle against the Maoists.”[502]

In January 1978, the Workers and Peasants Party came out into the open and sought legal recognition from the government. It was at that time reported to be “headed by Dogu Perincek, a former university assistant who had led an extreme Revolutionary Proletarian Enlightenment group within the umbrella Dev Gene organization in the mid-1970s.” In announcing the party’s application for legal recognition, Dogu Perincek announced that his party’s program was one “opposing American imperialism and Soviet social imperialism as well as terrorism, as favoring stronger ties with Greece and Third World countries, SED, Dokumentation 1980, page 160.and as ultimately aiming at the creation of a classless society.”

The pro-Moscow Communists denounced the Workers and Peasants Party. Radio Moscow claimed that it was “Maoist and anti-Soviet, accused it of covert alliance with extreme rightists, and denied that it was a true workers’ and peasants’ party.”[503]

In September 1978, the Workers and Peasants Party issued a joint statement with the Communist League of Austria defending the Pol Pot regime in Kampuchea, which, the document claimed, “is being attacked by Vietnamese leaders at the instigation of the social imperialists.”[504]

The First Congress of the Workers and Peasants Party met in Ankara in January 1980, attended by 300 delegates. It adopted party statutes and an agrarian program, and elected Dogu Perincek as its Chairman.[505]

The Workers and Peasants Party followed the international line of the successors of Mao in China. This was demonstrated in 1980 when, as Frank Tachau reported, the party “went so far as to renounce violence and even see advantages in NATO and in some foreign policy positions of the PPP and the Justice Party. Its explicit opposition to disorder and separation enabled it to continue to operate legally even under martial law before the September coup.”[506]

There were several other pro-Maoist parties in Turkey. One was the Revolutionary Workers and Peasants Party of Turkey, which was established in 1969. It held its First Congress in September 1977, during which the party program, statutes and an agrarian policy were adopted.[507]

Another Turkish Maoist group was the Communist Party of Turkey (Marxist-Leninist), which was founded in 1970.[508] After the death of Mao this party strongly opposed Hua Kuo-feng. In 1981, it participated in a conference sponsored by the Revolutionary Communist Party of the United States to establish an international grouping of such parties, pledging support of orthodox Maoism.[509] In 1992 it was still listed as an affiliate of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, formed as a result of the 1981 conference, and bringing together those parties and groups loyal to the Maoism of the Great Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four.[510]

Finally, there was the Revolutionary Communist Party of Turkey, established in 1979, headed by Cetin Kaya. It supported the Albanians in their opposition to Mao’s successors.[511]

Part Ⅲ: Asia and Oceania

Japanese Maoism

The Japan Communist Party (JCP) was one of those which, after some hesitation, adopted a neutral stance in the conflict between the Soviet and Chinese parties. As a consequence, both pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese splinters broke away from the main party.

Early Problems of Japanese Communists with the Cominform

The Sino-Soviet dispute was by no means the first time that the Japan Communist Party had been embarrassed by events in the International Communist Movement. Early in 1950, the Cominform (Information Bureau of Communist and Workers Parties) had blasted the policies of a part of the Japanese Party leadership. Interestingly enough, at that time, the Chinese party had joined in the Cominform’s attack.

When the Japan Communist Party had been revived after World War Ⅱ, its top leadership came from people who had spent long years in exile, and those who had spent the war years (and before) in jail. Among the most notable figures to emerge was Sanzo Nosaka, who had spent several years with the Chinese Party leadership in Yennan. He emerged as the leader of one of the major factions within the Japanese Party leadership.