Maoism in the Developed World

Meanwhile, E. F. Hill, one of the junior members of the old hard-line leadership of the CPA who had been particularly critical of the Chinese position in the early 1950s, ended up leading a pro-Chinese schism in the CPA on the basis of his approval of their hard-line positions of the late 1950s and afterwards. This split resulted in the formation in 1964 of the Communist Party of Australia-Marxist Leninist, a peculiarly secretive and doctrinaire organization.

Although the CPA-ML had a solid trade union base in the state of Victoria and also succeeded in getting a foothold in the unions of New South Wales, it was not a major factor in Australian organized labor generally. Also, in the broader political scene, its influence was minimal, in part at least due to its refusal to participate in elections.

Although the CPA-ML had some difficulty in following the changes in line of the Chinese party, it finally succeeded in veering around to support of the Hua-Deng leadership by the end of the 1970s. Although there apparently were expulsions, demotions and resignations over the years of those dissenting from E. F. Hill’s leadership, these did not result in any major organizational splits in the party. Neither the CPA-ML nor any substantial part of it had by 1980 veered off in an Albanian direction, after Enver Hoxha’s split with Mao’s successors.

Maoism in New Zealand

Maoism in New Zealand had a unique distinction. There, the Communist Party of New Zealand (CPNZ), which had been founded in December 1920 and had been a member of the Communist International as long as the Comintern existed, sided with the Chinese Communists in their split with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It was the only one-time Comintern member party to do so.

Long-Term Problems of the Communist Party of New Zealand

The Communist Party of New Zealand was never a significant force in the country’s politics. It reached its high point in terms of membership right after World War II, when it had about 2,000 card holders. By the late 1960s it was estimated that this number had fallen to between 300 and 400. The party never was able to elect anyone to the national parliament or any other public office; the nearest it came was in 1931, when one of its nominees for parliament obtained 6.15 percent of the vote in his constituency.[583]

This weakness of the party presented it with serious difficulties. One U.S. observer wrote in 1970 that “Throughout its existence, the CPNZ has been torn by factional strife between those determined to maintain an ideological ‘pure’ and elite core of revolutionaries—even at the expense of possible electoral gain—and those bent on pragmatic political advance. Frequent purges have failed to consolidate the party, whose continuing divisions demonstrate the frustration of a tiny party relegated to the outermost fringe of the nation’s political arena and unable to relate Marxist-Leninist theory to the context of day-to-day activity.”[584] The same source noted on another occasion that “In practice, the CPNZ has virtually no coherent political program. The party dares not advocate violent revolution, and itself acknowledges that ‘revolutionary potentialities’ in New Zealand are practically nil. Under such circumstances, about all the party can do is agitate over specific grievances against ‘class enemies’ and the government while maintaining that the capitalist system in New Zealand is heading for inevitable collapse. With regard to its nature and ultimate goals, the party leadership stresses that it is not trying to build the CPNZ into a mass party, lest it suffer corruption by trade unionism’ and abandon revolutionary objectives. Because of this, lack of direction and low morale within the party are thus more or less constant problems for the leadership, and are frequently the subjects of reports and criticisms by party leaders.”[585]

The CPNZ Joins the Maoists

When the Sino-Soviet dispute came out into the open, the Communist Party of New Zealand joined the Chinese side of the argument at its 20th Congress in 1963. Previous positions taken by Victor C. Wilcox, who had been Secretary General of the party since 1951 and largely dominated it for almost three decades thereafter, would not have indicated that the New Zealanders would take such a position.