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positions: east asia cultures critique 13.3 (2005) 523-533



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Maoism, Marxism of Our Time

Translated by Bruno Bosteels

Presentation

This text is that of the central intervention of the Group for the Foundation of the Union of Communists of France Marxist-Leninist (UCFML) at the meeting-debate held at the Mutualité on Saturday, November 6, 1976. Through forums, exhibitions, and interventions, this meeting-debate revolved around the theme: What is Maoist politics?

This meeting has been a great success. We have proof that there exists a revolutionary Maoist current of public opinion.

I. In Europe the Question of the Revolution is the Order of the Day

Our aim is the proletarian revolution in France. We say that this question is the order of the day; this does not mean that the situation is immediately [End Page 523] prerevolutionary. But it means: the political tasks of the revolutionary proletariat have been made sufficiently clear by the class struggle itself to give meaning and strength to its sustained accomplishment.

We say, against all the defeatists, all those who shamefully rally to the Union of the Left: organizing the proletarian revolution is today the only meaning and the only force.

In the last fifteen years the world has seen considerable upheavals. These years have been marked by unprecedented proletarian and popular assaults. Europe itself has been stirred up by mass movements of great scope. The Europe of the German students' movement, the Europe of the storm of May '68, the Europe of the workers from Asturias, the Europe of the proletarians in Turin and Milan, the Europe of the workers and peasants against fascism and revisionism in Portugal, the Europe of the Irish people against British colonialism, the Europe of the Polish workers against social-fascism, and so many others! We are proud of this Europe of class struggles, this Europe of storms!

At the same time, these years have seen the imperialist and bourgeois counteroffensive unfold. In Southern Europe in particular, we see the great maneuvers of the revisionist bourgeoisie to lift themselves into power.

People find standing in their path the sad quartet of usurpers of the new bourgeoisie, the quartet Marchais-Berlinguer-Carrillo-Cunhal, with their big syndicalist stick and the honeypot of so-called Eurocommunism. They go to great lengths, but they will end badly.

In the end, for those who look further and perceive the principal tendencies, these vast movements, with their flow back and forth, create new historical conditions that generate enthusiasm for the proletarian revolutionaries in Europe.

It is in these new historical conditions that we say: to practice the question of communist organization, necessary for the people's victory, means to practice a revolutionary Maoist politics.

To be Maoist, and not only Marxist-Leninist, to declare oneself Maoist, is a precise political choice. Our organization, the UCFML, which now has seven years of existence, is the only one to make this choice. And here we want to explain it. [End Page 524]

II. The Two Sources of Maoism in France

We were born at the high point of the popular assaults of the sixties. Our historical date of origin is the revolutionary storm of May '68.

Our ideological and theoretical base for support is the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. MAY '68 AND GREAT PROLETARIAN CULTURAL REVOLUTION: these are, if you want, the two sources of Maoism in France, in the way we see its force and its duration.

These two sources are not on the same level. We have never been simply "pro-China" for a decisive reason: politics cannot be imported. A people's revolutionary path is drawn in its own consciousness, in its accumulated experiences, in its own historical existence.

The Maoists in France appeared on the scene of history ten years ago. Who were they? They were those who said that here and now a revolutionary politics was possible. They said this against the shameful...

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