Maoism in the Developed World

Although the WCP “opposes electoral politics in general,” it did run 30 candidates in the 1980 federal election. At that time its membership was estimated at 1,500 and its paper, Forge, had a circulation of 12,000.

Alan Whitehorn commented, concerning the Workers Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) attitude on Canada’s international posture in 1980, that “The imperialist superpowers are portrayed as the greatest dangers to world peace. American imperialism is deemed the most dangerous threat to Canada, whereas the USSR is considered more bellicose. … The party calls for Canada’s withdrawal from NATO and North American defense system and a world united front against imperialist hegemonism. In such a front the Third World is to be the main force.”[118]

The Marxist-Leninist Organization Of Canada In Struggle

Finally, note must be taken of the Marxist-Leninist Organization of Canada In Struggle! This group, which was largely centered in Quebec and led by Charles Gignon, was reported to have “hundreds of organized members and organized sympathizers.”

We have no information as when this group—which never went so far as to declare itself a “party"—was established. However, in the aftermath of the death of Mao, it declared its opposition to his successors. Reportedly, “For a number of years In Struggle! consistently supported revolutionary struggle against imperialism and took an advanced position in the struggle against the three worlds theory’ which would effectively outlaw revolution in countries like Canada. … In Struggle! correctly stressed the international character of the proletarian revolution and called for the struggle to create a new international.”

This group sought to find bridges between Maoism and the Albanian dissidence. Although they said that Hoxha’s theories were “a positive contribution in the struggle against revisionism, “ they sought “to disassociate themselves with his reactionary conclusions (Mao was never a Marxist-Leninist, ad nauseam).”

Apparently because of internal dissension, the Marxist-Leninist Organization of Canada In Struggle! declared its own dissolution late in 1982 or early 1983.[119]

Conclusion

Canadian Maoism almost from its inception split into several rival groups. These “parties” took different positions in the face of Chinese internal developments and changes of foreign policy. One group joined the Progressive Labor Party in abandoning the Chinese party and government after President Nixon’s first trip to China. Another joined the Albanian camp when the Albanians broke with the post-Mao leadership in China.

Unlike Maoists in many countries, Canadian Maoists frequently participated in elections. Their vote was very marginal in all of the cases in which Maoists went to the hustings. Also, their influence was almost imperceptible in the organized labor movement, although of somewhat more consequences among students.

Part II: Europe

Maoism in Non-Communist Europe

Maoist parties appeared in the 1960s and 1970s in virtually all of the countries of Europe that were not under Communist control. Some of these originated as the result of dissidence in the pro-Moscow parties, others were the product of the New Left upsurge of the period.

In almost all of the European countries in which Maoism appeared, it comprised two or more different—and competing— groups. They assumed a great variety of names. Since parties affiliated with the Communist International had existed in virtually all of the European countries, the Maoist parties sought to picture themselves as direct descendants of those organizations, which had existed in the times of Lenin and Stalin. In cases—as in the Federal Republic of Germany and Switzerland—where the original party had changed its name, one of the Maoist groups assumed the original name of the party of the Comintern period.

The degree of contact between the European Maoist parties and the Chinese party varied a great deal from one case to the other. Clearly, the party headed by Jacques Grippa in Belgium held the “Chinese franchise” in its early years, although it subsequently lost it. Several others sent missions to China and had their activities given at least some degree of attention in the Chinese press. At least in the case of Germany, the Chinese appear to have withheld their full endorsement of any group in a fruitless attempt to get all those proclaiming loyalty to Mao Tse-tung Thought united in a single organization.