Factional fights with supporters of Chairman Gonzalo will get us no where

By SJ Otto

If there is one thing I don’t like about Marxist-Leninist Parties it is factionalism. It has been a problem since my early days of learning about Marxism in the late 1970s.

It just never seems to go away. The latest example I noticed was a conflict of words between Communist Party of Ecuador- Red Sun (CPE-RS) and Revolutionary Communist Party Canada (PCR-RCP, In Canada many parties are in both English and French).

This is the latest example I have seen of factional squabbles between two different factions of Maoism. I’m not sure how many other Maoists are as annoyed by factionalism as I am. It seems many Maoists would rather just pick a side than oppose the whole idea of factional fighting. It is bad enough we have to quarrel with such off shoots of Marxism as Trotskyism. We should not have to quarrel with other's Maoist factions.

I have seen at last one Maoist opinion opposing all of that factionalism and that opinion was in the Blog Democracy and Class Struggle:

 

“April 30, 2019

International 1st of May Declaration of various Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Parties and Organisations from Dem Volke Dienen

Democracy and Class Struggle supports the call in this statement for an International Conference of Maoist Organizations and Parties similar to the call of our Italian Comrades in their May Day Statement - We do not want two separate Conferences but one Conference that deals with differences and even contradictions in a constructive comradely way - it is our duty to overcome our internal contradictions to better Serve the People - Given that the French Maoist Party has signed both statements the ideological differences in both statements are not so wide apart that they cannot be bridged.”

 

So I’m not alone in being disturbed by these things. I’m not that surprised that the followers of Gonzalo have been accused of being dogmatic. They have been labeled that many times in the past. They do attack parties they consider revisionist.

For example in their latest article, “SOME COMMENTS ON THE DOCUMENT “ON MAOISM ITSELF” OF THE RCP OF CANADA-“ By the Communist Party of Ecuador- Red Sun:

 

“IF WE DON'T FIGHT AGAINST REVISIONISM, WE WILL HAVE DONE NOTHING!”

 

But what surprised me a lot is what I found in the article the CPE-RS was critiquing, “Maoism as in itself: against the idealism of the "mainly Maoist" current,” by The Revolutionary Communist Party of Canada. It took me a while to find the article, but when I did, I noticed it was way less professionally written than I would have imagined. It was full of all the insults that I have seen over the years, used by Marxist groups against other factions. For example:

 

“What does not correspond to a "pure" and immutable form, they spit on it. But the "purity" they seek exists only in their pretentious and idealistic petty-bourgeois minds.”

 

It is easy to see this is a slam. I have seen many groups, including Trotskyist, calling leftist groups petty-bourgeois. This is an obvious attempt to imply that the CPE-RS is not really a working class organization. That insult is used so often and so easily that I no longer take it seriously at all. Another example:

 

“Despite the fact that they pompously proclaim themselves to be "to the left" of our party, in reality they adopt a liquidating position favoring the victory of right-wing opportunism. ……”

 

Again these are common insults that I have seen many times by one faction against the other. –“liquidate, right-wing opportunism”—it all reminds me of leftist groups I used to listen to in the 1970s arguing “who is really socialist—and who is not really socialist.“ After a while it all seems redundant and ridiculous.

One really strange argument the Canadian RCP made is that the Gonzalo supporters are opposed to the Maoist revolutionaries in both India and the Philippines:

 

“In addition to being an illusory solution to the real problems encountered by revolutionary organizations around the world, the ideological struggle waged by supporters of the idealist tendency is a brazen attack on the parties leading the most advanced revolutionary movements today, that is ie the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and the Communist Party of the Philippines. Indeed, the position developed by the idealist tendency amounts to placing these parties in the camp of the right-wing liquidators and of the revisionists since they do not recognize the “universally valid contributions of Gonzalo Thought” and they also have a “ eclectic conception of Maoism. In fact, the idealistic line, behind the screen of support for an imaginary popular war that would never have ended in Peru, opposes the actual people's wars currently underway…..”

 

I have noticed some negative words by José María Sison founded the Communist Party of the Philippines towards Chairman Gonzalo and his followers. I have noticed some hostility by some supporters of Gonzalo. However, in the past CPE-RS and its allies have supported the Maoists in India. Almost all Maoists do support the Communist Party of India (Maoist). They are the most successful of all Maoist military movements in the world. The Communist Party of the Philippines and The New People’s army are the second most successful. The CPE-RS said this in their latest posting:

 

“LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE'S WAR IN INDIA, THE PHILIPPINES, TURKEY AND PERU!”

 

If they oppose the Maoist movements in India and the Philippines, why did they print that line?

Another strange argument by the RCP Canada was support for Bob Avakian and his US RCP. Nearly all Maoists I have come across, in the US, oppose Avakian for a number of reasons. However I am not against reposting their articles if they are well written and well thought out. So again, the more we ignore factional fighting the better.

The main point of this article is that theses factional fight hurt all Maoists. It is hard enough to fight the capitalist imperialist system without trying to fight off opposing factions of Maoists.

In this case the RCP Canada has written the more factionally hostile attach on the pro-Gonzalo factions. It is filled with childish and moronic insults that have no place in a professionally written document. The article written and posted by CPE-RS was more respectful of the RCP Canada. The real losers are all the working class people who really need well constructed Maoist Parties that can help them develop a revolution against the Bourgeois establishment. Let’s not let them down.

 

Pix by -factionalism - Liberal Dictionary.