Dominican Popular Movement
The Dominican Popular Movement (Movimiento Popular Dominicano), the oldest Maoist group, was established by a group of Dominican exiles in Cuba in 1956. José Sánchez noted that “it originally was a heterogeneous group of no definite ideology, united mainly by its members’ opposition to the Trujillo dictatorship. However, when its leaders and members returned home after Trujillo’s death in 1961, it quickly evolved in a Marxist-Leninist direction, and those who were not of that persuasion abandoned the party. The MPD was formally organized as a political party in August 1965. It quickly became, together with the Dominican Communist Party and the 14th of June Movement, one of three major elements in the much splintered far-left of Dominican politics. It was the principal representative of Maoism in the country.”[321]
Soon after the formal establishment of the MPD as a political party, there developed an internal quarrel that reflected, in addition to personal rivalries, the conflicting Castroite and Maoist tendencies within Communism in the Dominican Republic, and Latin America in general. The first Secretary-General of the MPD, Máximo López Molina, wrote a letter to the Cuban Communist Party, with a copy sent to the Chinese party, “charging Fidel Castro with having failed the international proletariat by not intervening in the Dominican uprising in April 1965.” Subsequently, the MPD’s delegate to the Tricontinental Conference in Havana, “instead of supporting the MPD leader’s accusations against Castro, declared that López’ letter had been discredited by the central committee of the MPD.” López Molina then withdrew from the MPD in the spring of 1966 to form his own pro-Chinese Orthodox Communist Party (PCO).
At the time of establishing the PCO, López Molina said that what separated it from the MPD was “the difference between the thinking of Mao Tse-tung, constituting the Marxism-Leninism of our epoch, and the counterrevolutionary line of revisionism. There is no intermediate line, there is no position of ‘neutrality.’”[322] The Cubans were undoubtedly the “neutrals” to whom he was referring. The PCO had apparently disappeared by the early 1970s.
In 1967, the MPD was clearly aligned with the Maoists. In November of that year it issued a statement saying that it “firmly and resolutely” supported the Great Cultural Revolution, adding, “Since the great cultural revolution started in China there has been an increase in the revolutionary upsurge both inside and outside China.” According to Carol Stokes, “The statement declared that Chairman Mao’s teachings, such as ‘political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,’ were frequently quoted by the revolutionary workers, peasants and students.”[323]
After the exit of López Molina, the principal leader of the MPD was Secretary-General Maximiliano Gómez. Other important figures were Otto Morales and Julio de la Peña Valdéz, who was Secretary-General of Frente Obrero Unido Pro Sindicatos Autónomous-Central Sindical de Trabajadores Dominicanos (FOUPSACESITRADO), one of the several central labor organizations that developed in the years following the death of Trujillo. By 1969, the MPD had regional organizations in Santiago, La Romana, Barahona, San Francisco de Macorís, and Santo Domingo.[324]
During the 1960s, the MPD suffered two splits in addition to that led by López Molina. The first took place soon after the 1965 insurrection of Colonel Caamaño. It resulted in establishment of the Communist Party of the Dominican Republic, often referred to as the PACOREDO. The other occurred in February 1968 when a small group broke away from the MPD to establish Proletarian Voice.[325]
In the early 1970s there were violent clashes between MPD adherents and those of PACOREDO. In January 1971, the MPD joined with the Red Line of the 14th of June, Proletarian Voice, and two other groups to fight PACOREDO’s “criminal aggressions and provocation by words and arms,” accusing that party of a “coldly calculated series of murders of MPD members.” A further communiqué of these four groups, which said that the country’s political situation was “worsened by bands of delinquents and disrespect for court orders,” and that “U.S. imperialism and its lackeys” were supporting “savage economic exploitation and cruel political repression” in the Dominican Republic, was given publicity by the New China News Agency.[326] In subsequent years, the Proletarian Voice group aligned itself with Red Line and Red Flag factions of the 14th of June Movement.
At the time of the 1970 election, the MPD called for a broad front of elements of both the Right and the Left “to overthrow the Trujillistas,” that is, to defeat President Joaquín Balaguer. The pro-Moscow PCD strongly attacked the position of the MPD.[327]
In 1970, two of the principal figures in the MPD were killed in clashes with the police. These were Otto Morales, who “was considered a party ideologist,” and Amin Abel Hasbún. In March of that year, MPD gained international attention by kidnapping Lt. Col. Donald Crowley, a military attaché at the U.S. Embassy, who was released after the freeing of Maximiliano Gómez, who had been under arrest since 1967, and eighteen other political prisoners. At the time of his arrest, Gómez, when accused by the head of the Security Police of “extending terrorism in the country,” had replied, “Sir, I am a follower of Karl Marx, not Al Capone.”[328]
In student elections at the University of Santo Domingo in October 1970, the student group Fragua, in alliance with the students of the Red Line of the 14th of June Movement, almost defeated the supporters of the Dominican Revolutionary Party. As a consequence, the MPD held “strong positions… within the co-government” of the university.[329] In the following year, the MPD-Red Line coalition won the election for student members of the co-government of the university.[330]
In 1971, the MPD suffered more important casualties. Maximiliano Gómez, the Secretary-General of the MPD, who had been in exile, was found dead in Brussels on May 23. His death was attributed to poison. The widow of Otto Morales was also found murdered in Brussels.[331] Gómez was succeeded as Secretary-General of MPD by Rafael Taveras, who was jailed in 1971 on charges of having conspired to overthrow the Balaguer government.[332]
Early in 1973, Colonel Caamaño, who had been in exile since 1965, landed with a small group of followers, and sought unsuccessfully to launch a guerrilla war against the Balaguer regime. At that time, the MPD “urged its followers to evaluate the general situation in light of the landing of the guerrillas.” It also demanded that troops be withdrawn from the University of Santo Domingo, and that the government present proof of charges being made that Juan Bosch had been implicated in the Caamaño effort. Subsequently, the MPD asserted that Caamaño landing, which resulted in his death, had been made without notifying of the MPD or any other Dominican Party. It added that once the landing had taken place, there was not enough time to organize any movement in its support.[333] Later that year, the MPD urged the formation of a coalition government to assure the holding of honest elections in the following year.[334]
321
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