Maoism in the Developed World

A few of the surviving parties of the more “orthodox” variety had for the first time established what amounted to a Maoist International, the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM). The formation of the RIM tended to highlight one of the peculiarities of International Maoism; until then, no attempt to form a Maoist version of the Communist International had ever been made by Mao himself or by the Chinese party at any time. All relations between the Chinese party and those elsewhere which were Maoist were on a party by party basis, rather than taking the form of establishment of an international organization.

In sum, it can be said that International Maoism constituted, so long as Mao lived, the most consequential schismatic movement within International Communism since it came into existence in 1919, with the establishment of the Communist International. Although International Trotskyism has had a much longer existence, dating from 1929, and still is in existence at the end of the twentieth century, it has never had as many parties associated with it, nor has it had parties of the importance of some of those that rallied to the banner of Mao Tse-tung. International Maoism was the only schismatic tendency in the history of the Communist movement to have had the support of a major country. Its fate rested largely on whether or not that power, China, continued to maintain that support.[1]

Part I: United States and Canada

Maoism in the United States and Canada

Maoism appeared in both the United States and Canada in the early 1960s, in the former case even before the Chinese Communists overtly sought to recruit counterparts in other countries. In both cases, the earliest Maoist groups were breakaways from the pro-Soviet Communist parties. Subsequently, recruits to Maoism came in large part from elements of the New Left of the 1960s.

As was the case in many other countries, the followers of “Mao Tse-tung Thought” in the United States and Canada lacked unity among themselves. Various competing groups appeared in both countries!—in Canada, in large degree because they originated in different parts of the country, in the United States because they emerged from New Left groups of different racial and ethnic origins. There were few attempts to establish unity among the competing Maoist sects.

With the alterations of Chinese Communist Party and government policy beginning in the early 1970s, new sources of schism arose among the Maoist groups in the United States and Canada. The Progressive Labor Party abandoned Maoism as early as 1972 because of the rapprochement of the Mao regime with the United States. Subsequently, groups in both countries took differing positions on the changing policies and personnel in China following the death of Mao Tse-tung. Some supported the successors of Mao, others backed the Gang of Four. Finally, there were groups in both nations that ended up allying themselves with the Albanians.

In neither country did any Maoist party present a really formidable challenge to the pro-Soviet Communist Party, or for that matter, to the principal Trotskyist groups. They predominantly appealed to radicalized youths, particularly on college campuses. The efforts of a few of them to establish a base in the labor movement proved largely fruitless.

During the 1960s, the Progressive Labor Party of the United States may be said to have had the “Chinese franchise,” and by the late 1970s the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) enjoyed the same endorsement from the People’s Republic for a short while. It is not clear that any Canadian group established any close connection with the Chinese Party and government.

The Progressive Labor Party

The Progressive Labor Party was the first significant Maoist party in the United States. Unlike most of its successors, it originated in a split in the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), and it held the “Chinese franchise” throughout most of the 1960s and until it broke with Mao and the Chinese Party over the Nixon-Mao rapprochement of 1971—1972. It was, perhaps, the first national Maoist group to break with the Chinese.

Establishment Of The Progressive Labor Party

In 1961, two secondary leaders of the Communist Party in New York state, Milt Rosen and Mort Scheer, took the lead in organizing a “left wing” within it. Both men had sought membership in the CP National Committee in 1959, but had not been chosen.[2] Rosen was originally from Buffalo, but by 1961 was a state organizer, working out of New York City.[3]