Maoism in the Developed World

One can only speculate on the reasons for Mao’s failure to unite his followers around the world into a new international organization. Perhaps one of them was the fact that there were in a number of countries several competing groups claiming loyalty to Maoism, and that the interests of Mao and the Chinese party could be better served if they did not have to make hard and fast decisions concerning the orthodoxy of each of these, as would presumably have been required if the attempt were made to bring all of them into a single international organization. Perhaps it was also more convenient to have Mao and the Chinese party remain the only source of orthodox Maoism, rather than transferring all or part of that function to an international body in which, to a greater or less degree, leaders of other parties would share that function.

In any case, with the splintering of International Maoism after the death of its source, the Revolutionary Communist Party of the United States sought to undertake the unification of those parties and groups that remained loyal to the “orthodox Maoism” of the Great Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four. The RCP first joined with its namesake in Chile in issuing a call for an international conference of such parties, which apparently took place in 1981. The second meeting, three years later, resulted in the formation of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM).[67]

Membership in the RIM varied from one year to another, depending on the disappearance of some of its original members, and addition of new ones. Most member groups were located in developing countries.

It is to be presumed that the RCP of the United States continued to play a major role in the RIM, even though its official headquarters were in London. However, the secretiveness of the organization, which never published a full list of members of its executive committee, makes it difficult for an outsider to know exactly what part the RCP, or any other member group, played in the organization.

The Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)

Another Maoist group to emerge from the New Left of the 1960s was the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist). It had its origins in the Revolutionary Youth Movement II faction of the SDS, and was led by Michael Klonsky. He and his followers formed the October League (OL), and following the Chinese lead, adopted several positions that were different from those of most of the far Left groups in the United States. They opposed the movement for homosexual liberation.[68] Also, in late 1974 and 1975 they came out in support of the Shah’s regime in Iran. In defending this position, the OL said that their critics were wrong on two counts: First, they “did not see the importance of the attempts by the Shah to exercise independence from the U.S. imperialism. The second is to under-estimate the danger of Soviet social imperialism. Both are examples of substituting subjective ideals for objective reality.”[69]

The Oh had some influence in established civil rights groups, particularly in the South. These included the Southern Christian Leadership Council led by Hosea Williams, and the Southern Conference Educational Fund, which had been largely under control of the pro-Moscow Communist Party of the United States.[70]

The October League established a youth group, the Communist Youth Organization. Near the end of 1975 it organized a “National Fight Back Conference” in Chicago which it claimed was attended by 1,000 people and which had the slogan, “unite against the two superpowers.” Present at the meeting were representatives of the Congress of African People, the August 29th Movement (largely made up of Chicanos) and the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee of San Francisco.[71]

In June 1977, the October League was converted into the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) (CPM-L). Michael Klonsky was chairman of the new party and Eileen Klehr was its vice chairman. The CPM-L, having endorsed the purge of the Gang of Four, received the “Chinese franchise” in the United States. In July 1977, Klonsky and Klehr visited Peking and were officially received by Hua Kuo-feng. According to Harvey Klehr, these two were “prominently displayed by the Chinese.“[72] In June 1978, another leader of the party, Harry Haywood, a one-time leader of the CPUSA, “met with Chinese leaders.” In 1978, too, the editor of the CPM-L paper The Call visited Cambodia, and upon his return, had an article on the Op Ed page of the New York Times denying that the Pol Pot regime had been involved in any kind of genocide.[73]