Maoism in the Developed World

Foley claimed that “The MRPP is an extremely sectarian grouping. Its meetings and demonstrations are distinguished by the most frenzied ‘revolutionary’ play-acting. … The exhortations … punctuated with the shouts of ‘comrades!’ and the clenched-fist salute.”

Describing one MRPP demonstration, on July 18, 1974, Foley commented that “The ranks stood in almost military formation under a heavy foliage of red flags bearing golden stars and a long list of initials. … While the participants in the rally were enthusiastic and well-disciplined, they were all too busy shouting slogans … to be able to talk to the crowd gathered in the area.”[352]

Sam Marcy, writing in Workers World in February 1975, noted that “At the moment, the MRPP is clearly in the ascendant as a result of its leadership in the Oporto and Lisbon demonstrations in recent weeks. Its gains, which are minimal, are mostly at the expense of the CP.” Marcy noted that the MRPP was accusing the pro-Moscow Communist Party of “social fascism,” and had as one of its slogans, “social fascists out of the trade unions.”[353]

At the end of May 1975, the Portuguese government, still under the strong influence of the Communist Party, cracked down severely on the MRPP. Intercontinental Press reported that “Hundreds of members and leaders of the Maoist Movimiento Reorganizativo do Partido do Proletariado (MRPP—Movement to Reorganize the Proletarian Party) are now held as political prisoners in Portugal. During the night of May 28—29, security police conducted coordinated raids on the headquarters of the nearly 500 of its members, including central leaders, [who] were arrested. The military later claimed that the number arrested was 269. Leaflets, files, and typewriters were confiscated.”[354]

The Socialist Party protested against these attacks on the MRPP. Gerry Foley noted that “when an SP spokesman opposed the repression of a Maoist party on the floor of the Constituent Assembly in July, CP members walked out and their supporters denounced him as a fascist.”[355]

The MRPP was by no means obliterated by these arrests. Thus its party paper, Luta Popular, denounced the turning over by an army captain of substantial numbers of arms to another far leftist group in September 1975.[356] In the following month, elements of the MRPP were accused by the Communist Organization of Portugal-Marxist Leninist (OCPML) of having attacked and set fire to a headquarters of the OCPML.[357]

By 1977, the MRPP had been converted into the Portuguese Communist Party-Reconstructed. It held its Second Congress in April of that year, “ending with a rally attended by members of a number of other European and Latin American Marxist-Leninists parties. This was said to be the first time that the Albanian Party of Labor had sent a delegation to attend a rally abroad. … In June a delegation of the PCP-R visited Albania at the invitation of the APL Central Committee.”[358]

Early in 1980, it was reported that “the PCP-R continued its special and cordial relationship with the dissident Albanian Party of Labor, which a PCP-R delegation visited in March” of the previous year. This report continued, The Albanian party sent a greeting of solidarity to the Third Congress of the PCP-R, hailing their common struggle against U.S. imperialism and Soviet and Chinese social-imperialism.”[359]

The Communist Party Of Portugal (Marxist-Leninist)

Although we have noted the claim, that the Communist Organization of Portugal-Marxist-Leninist (OCPML)) had obtained the “Chinese franchise” by late 1975, there seems good reason to doubt that this was the case. In June 1975, the New York Trotskyist (Spartacist) periodical, Workers Vanguard, noted that “In more than 50 issues of Peking Review since the dictatorial Cae-tano regime was toppled in Lisbon … not one word has appeared on Portugal. This is despite the fact that both the MRPP and the other leading Maoist group, the PCP-ML, sent their leaders to Peking last month in order to get the official franchise.”[360]

It is clear that it was the Communist Party of Portugal (Marxist-Leninist) which the Chinese came to regard as their brother party in Portugal. This group had first been established in 1970 with a group around H. G. Vilar, in Paris. In 1974 it took the name PCPML. In January 1977, at its Third Congress, still under the leadership of Secretary General Heduino Gomes Vilar, the party adopted a new program. Its central organ was Unidade Popular, but it also published several papers for peasants, workers and regional groups.

The PCPML had some influence in organized labor, where in 1974 it had established the Alianca Operaria Camponesa, which published a periodical A Voz do Trabalhador. Those unions under the PCPML influence joined the Uniao Geral do Trabalho, when that trade union confederation was established under Socialist leadership in 1979.[361]