By the early 1970s, GONG was publishing a monthly journal, also called GONG. Another periodical, Vérité et Progrès Social, likewise supported Maoism, and supposedly was associated with GONG.
By the late 1970s, a faction had broken away from GONG to establish the Union for the Liberation of Guadeloupe. Neither it nor GONG had any representation in municipal or islandwide legislative bodies.[398]
By the end of the 1970s, the Maoists had not become a significant factor in Guadeloupean politics. Their principal appeal, for the independence of the island, had very little popular support. The orthodox Communists went no further than demanding the “autonomy” of Guadeloupe, and no other party went even that.
In 1977, the East German Communist Party, the SED, reported the existence of the Party of Workers of Guadeloupe.[399] We have no further information about this Maoist group.
Guyanese Maoists
Communism in Guyana (then the colony of British Guiana) had its origins in the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), which was established in 1950. The PPP was originally organized as a nationalist organization—unlike most of the parties that had preceded it, which had been organized on the basis of ethnic affiliation, principally of people of African and East Indian origin.
In 1953, British Guiana was given a new constitution, and in the first election under this document, the People’s Progressive Party won a substantial majority and its head, Cheddi Jagan, became Leader of Government Business. However, within a few months, the British government removed the PPP government, claiming that it was trying to establish a Communist regime.
Elections were not held again until 1957, when the PPP won once again, and Jagan became Premier in a new semi-autonomous government. The PPP remained in power until 1964. However, during this second period, the party received support overwhelmingly from only the East Indian population.
The 1964 election put in power the People’s National Congress, and its leader, Lynden Forbes Burnham, became Prime Minister. In the following year, he negotiated with the British, and presided over the establishment of independent Guyana in 1966.
The People’s National Congress (PNC) had been organized in 1957 by Burnham, who until then had been second-in-command in the PPP. He proclaimed his party to be Democratic Socialist, and accused the PPP of being a Communist party. In fact, the PNC became the principal representative of the people of African origin, and for more than three decades Guyanese politics remained divided between Afro-Guyanese and Guyanese of East Indian origin.
The PNC remained in power from 1964 until 1992. It was widely recognized that it maintained its control through a combination of manipulated elections and coercion.
Until 1969, the PPP and its leaders denied that theirs was a Communist party. However, at the 1969 Moscow Conference of Communist Parties, Cheddi Jagan represented the PPP and “made an unequivocal move to align the party with the Soviet Union. In turn, the PPP was recognized by the Soviet leaders as a bona-fide communist party.”[400]
Working People’s Vanguard Party (Marxist-Leninist)
Not all of the PPP leaders went along with the party’s Soviet alignment. Those who did not were led by Brindley Benn, a former Chairman of the party, and one of the principal Afro-Guyanese who had not gone along with Burnham’s split from the PPP.
Under Benn’s leadership, the Working People’s Vanguard Party (Marxist-Leninist) (WPVP) was established. The immediate issue over which the WPVP was organized was the PPP’s participation in the 1968 election, the first one held under the Burnham government, which the PPP later claimed Burnham had won through manipulating the results. Benn and his followers were strongly opposed to participation in the election.[401]
However, Brindley Benn also had serious ideological differences with Cheddi Jagan and the rest of the PPP leadership. Concerning this, Lynn Ratliff wrote in 1973, “Benn questioned Jagan’s form of Marxism and held that the PPP was following the path of ‘opportunism and revisionism.’ The WPVP is opposed to participation in elections, on the ground that both the PNC and the PPP are ‘racist’ and thus are impeding the unification of workers. Unequivocally giving his allegiance to Mao Tse-tung, Benn applauded the Cultural Revolution and criticized the Soviet Union as a class-dominated society. The PPP’s alignment with the Soviet Union was branded by Benn as ‘betrayal’ of Guyanese and others fighting for national liberation.”
However, although the WPVP pledged support of the Chinese, it apparently did not completely adhere to the Maoist “line.” It did not adopt the Chinese criticism of the Castro regime’s alignment with the Soviet Union. As late as 1972, Brindley Benn praised the Cuban Foreign Minister’s speech to that year’s Non Aligned Conference. He said that it “underlines Cuba’s staunch loyalty to the principle of international solidarity of the working class.”[402]
The WPVP remained a very small organization, and continued its opposition to participating in elections under the Burnham regime.[403] For a number of years it participated in a coalition of groups opposing both the PPP and the PNC, the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), led by Walter Rodney, a professor at Guyana University.[404]
In 1979 Cheddi Jagan wrote to me about the relationship of the WPVP and the WPA: “Working People’s Alliance and the Working Peoples Vanguard Party at one time were closely associated. The Working People’s Alliance was formed in December 1974 as a federation of four groups—ASCRIA, IRPA (Indian Revolutionary Political Associates), the Ratoon Group (the University of Guyana) and the Working Peoples Vanguard Party (WPVP). The latter was formed by the ex-Chairman of the PPP after he broke away around 1968. These groups generally took an ultraleft and Maoist position. In September 1976 the WPVP withdrew from the WPA and in March 1976, the WPA came out in support with some modifications for the PPP’s call for a National Patriotic Front and a National Patriotic Front Government based on a democratic, anti-imperialist and socialist oriented programme.”[405]
The Maoists apparently took little part in events leading up to the eventual defeat of the People’s National Party in the election of October 1992, as a result of which Cheddi Jagan became President of Guyana. Jagan wrote to me in May 1989, “The parties now active in Guyanese politics are the People’s Progressive Party, the Working People’s Alliance, the Democratic Labor Movement, the People’s Democratic Movement and the National Labor Front. These are grouped together in the opposition Patriotic Coalition for Democracy (PCD). United Republican Party also opposes the government. The opposition parties which are not so active are the United Force and the National Labor Front.”[406]
Guyanese politics continued to be dominated by the People’s Progressive Party and the People’s National Congress. Maoism never became a major factor, even in the Guyanese far Left.
398
Interview with Valire, op. cit.; and interview with Marcel Gargar,
400
Lynn Ratliff, in
401
402
Lynn Ratliff, in
403
Lynn Ratliff, in
404
William Ratliff, in
405
See Robert J. Alexander,