Maoism in the Developed World

A group sympathetic to the Chinese broke away from the Swiss Labor Party in 1963 and formed the Swiss Communist Party (KPS). It was confined, at least in its early years, largely to the French-speaking cities of Biel, Vevey and Lausanne. Although it claimed a membership of 300, the U.S. State Department said its “active membership may be only a few dozen.”[490]

Although generally favorably disposed to the Chinese, the KPS, at least in its early years, was not entirely uncritical of them. Early in September 1964, the KPS newspaper UEUncelle published an article that questioned the Chinese claim that “imperialism is a paper tiger.” It said “We think that that is wrong. Lenin always said that one should never underestimate the adversary. … It is wrong to maintain as do the Chinese comrades that socialist society would exist after an atomic war. It is wrong and it is dangerous.”

However, the Swiss Communist Party at its First Congress on September 5—6, 1964 joined in Peking’s denunciation of the Yugoslav regime, saying “The workers self-government economy of the Tito clique is a capitalism of the State of a peculiar nature.” It also declared that a recent agreement between the United States and the USSR “is an ignoble fraud.”[491]

The KPS continued to be critical of the Chinese and apparently had severe reservations about the Great Cultural Revolution. In August 1965, L’Entincelle carried an attack “on romantics with pro-Chinese leanings, sectarians and intellectuals,” and did not at the same time attack “Soviet revisionists.”[492]

The KPS apparently disappeared because in 1975 a new party with that name was established, by a merger of a group that had split from the Communist Party of Switzerland (Marxist-Leninist) and an originally pro-Trotskyist group in Zurich. Its leader was Harald Fritschi and its central organ was Rote Fahne, published in Zurich.[493]

The Communist Party of Switzerland (Marxist-Leninist) was established in 1970 by a Maoist group that broke away from the original KPS. They first formed the Organization of Communists of Switzerland (Marxist-Leninist), which had its principal base in the canton of Lausanne.[494]

In 1972 a congress of the Organization of Communists of Switzerland (M-L) established the Communist Party of Switzerland (Marxist-Leninist (PCS-ML). It proclaimed itself to be “governed by Marxism-Leninism and the philosophy of Mao Tse-tung.” The congress declared that the establishment of the party was “a new and decisive phase in the struggle to have the proletariat of Switzerland gain power, to have the dictatorship of the proletariat replace the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and to abolish the exploitation and oppression of the people.” The new party had a monthly publication Octubre.[495]

In April 1973 Octubre, which was being published in German, French and Italian, was largely dedicated to the commemoration of Stalin. Its principle article was entitled “For the twentieth anniversary of J. V. Stalin’s death. Stalin Lives!”[496]

The KPS (M-L) feuded with the new KPS, attacking it as being composed of “neo-Trotskyists and anti-communist parasites.” The KPS, in turn, labeled the KPS (M-L) “useless agitators and petty-bourgeois chauvinists.”[497]

The KPS (M-L) held its Second Congress in December 1977, which adopted the party’s first formal party program. At the end of this congress, a communique was issued that proclaimed that the party program “demonstrates the progress of the party in the application of Marxism-Leninism to the situation and in the strategy and tactics of the revolutionary struggle for socialism and a red Switzerland.” It also said that the KPS (M-L) “considers the struggle against revisionism as its principal ideological task. … We see in the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the U.S.A., the principle enemies of our revolution.”[498]

A third Maoist group was established in 1979. This was the Swiss Communist Organization (SKO), formed by a fusion of local groups in Zurich and Basel and in the French-speaking regions. Its Chairman was Jurg Stocklin.

All three of the Swiss Maoist organizations supported the Chinese leadership after the death of Mao. They all endorsed the Three Worlds Theory and the KSP (M-L) had a delegation in China in June 1978.[499]

Eric Waldman noted in 1987 that “Other communist organizations, such as the Communist Party of Switzerland Marxist-Leninist … and the Communist Organization Labor Party, have shown no signs of activity during 1986.”[500]

Turkish Maoism

Maoism in Turkey originated within the ranks of the Dev Gene, or Federation of Revolutionary Youth, established in the early 1960s. The Dev Gene was reported to have “All sorts of currents and groups … represented—Marxists, anarchists, Maoists, and Leninists.”[501]