Maoism in the Developed World

The new British Maoist group also proclaimed its loyalty to the legacy of Joseph Stalin. One of its leaders, A. H. Evans, wrote that “Khrushchov [sic] has stressed to the point of dangerous stupidity certain failings in the personality of Stalin, failings that were true. Nevertheless. … Stalin’s failings were more than counter-balanced by his share in routing the kulaks, by his insistence on heavy industry. In order to accomplish these two primary aims it was essential to smash internal opposition, to struggle fiercely for Party Unity. … The iron will of Stalin, his grasp of essential theory, had much to do with routing the enemy. To play these historical facts down, belittle them, to take the body of the man who so largely shaped them, to cast his body as that of a dog, secretly, in dead-of-night, into a wall—even the Kremlin Wall—is to do an ill-service to the struggle for World Socialism and the ultimate brotherhood of man.”[232]

In most of its publications the Committee to Defeat Revisionism expressed the group’s support of Mao and the Chinese Communists against their Soviet opponents. Thus, Michael McCreeiy wrote in one of the Committee’s pamphlets dated November 1963, that “The defence of Marxism-Leninism is being led, internationally by Mao Tse-tung and the Communist Party of China.”[233]

In another pamphlet, Arthur Evans wrote that “Having enriched the theory and practice of Marxism in these two directions, curbing god-worship and putting the angels to a richer life through more varied work, the Chinese leadership resurrected Lenin’s State and Revolution, studied it in the light of their own experiences, and decided that Lenin was, as usual, nearer to ultimate truth than any contemporary.”[234]

Evans argued that “Stalin gave to the Chinese communists a certain amount of excellent advice and some advice which was not so excellent. The Chinese took the excellent advice, thanked Comrade Stalin for the bad advice and went on their own way. Not a bad way of doing things.”

Evans then sketched the origins of the Sino-Soviet split. He wrote that “The split in the movement can be traced directly to Khrushchov’s attack on Stalin in 1956. Following this initial at­tack, Khrushchov has progressively developed a special line of his own regarding the policy of peaceful coexistence as outlined by Lenin. … The Chinese leaders assert that Khrushchov’s policy of peaceful co-existence is a laying-down of arms, an outright betrayal of colonial and semi-colonial peoples now moving into action in Asia, Africa and Latin America.”[235]

In another pamphlet, Evans wrote that “Here in Britain, the fog of deliberate obscurity clouds the real issues between your comrades and N. Khrushchov. Our main avenue comes via Peking, from those same comrades who have so wisely led their peoples to victory after victory over all enemies. Those Chinese comrades who took practical steps back in 1949, before the civil war was over, to destroy the cult of the individual.”[236]

The leaders of the Committee to Defeat Revisionism clearly thought themselves part of a wider international movement. In attacking the CPGB, Michael McCreery wrote that “Suppression of factual information which would enable members of the Communist Party to gain a clear picture of the real issues within the international Communist movement, now that the revisionists have taken to public slander of Communist parties which stand by the basic truths of Marxism-Leninism, and the basic interests of the working class, is persistent and deliberate. There has been no mention of important statements defending Marxism-Leninism made in recent months by the Communist Parties of Vietnam, New Zealand, Indonesia, Korea, Albania, Brazil, and many other countries, and only a few extracts from statements by the Communist Party of China, selected in an attempt to distort the true standpoint of this fraternal Party.”[237]

However, there is no indication as to whether the Committee to Defeat Revisionism had any direct contacts with the Chinese Party.

In September 1964, there was a split in the Committee to Defeat Revisionism, for Communist Unity. The London Sunday Telegraph reported that “Members of the pro-Chinese breakaway group which left the British Communist Party last November have fallen out among themselves.” Two leading figures in the group, Arthur Evans, editor of Vanguard, and R. A. Jones, features editor of the paper, quit the Committee. These two, who were reported to have “left” the Committee, without any indication of whether they had resigned or been expelled, were denounced by Michael McCreery, described as “the old Etonian son of Gen. Sir Richard McCreery, who is secretary of the Committee,” as being guilty of “left sectarianism,” in “ignoring the stages through which revolution must develop.”[238]