Apparently as a consequence of the ending of guerrilla efforts, Douglas Bravo and his followers in 1976 organized a legal party, known as Ruptura, which held its first national congress in Caracas in January of that year.[553] Bravo’s wife, Argelia Melet, was Secretary-General of the new party.[554]
In November 1979, Douglas Bravo returned to Venezuela, ending his clandestine political career. He then officially associated himself with Ruptura, and was greeted by a very large crowd at his first public appearance, organized by Ruptura, in his home state of Falcón. He announced that the party would particularly center its attacks on Movimiento a Socialismo (MAS), the party organized by Teodoro Petkoff and others who split from the Communist Party after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslvakia.[555]
In spite of Douglas Bravo’s apparent shift of allegiance from the Party of the Venezuelan Revolution to Ruptura, the PRV continued to exist. In 1978, it was reported to have sent a delegation to visit China.[556]
Other Maoist Groups
In addition to the PRV, there was another Maoist group that existed in Venezuela in the early 1970s, the Patria Nueva. We have little information about its origins or how long it continued to exist, although it was certainly still active in 1977.[557]
In 1976, a new Maoist group was established that had some following among the students of the Central University (UCV) in Caracas. This was known as the Popular Struggle Committees (CLP).[558] It was reported that José Demetrio Bonilla of the National Committee of the CLP had “led a campaign in the UCV in which he affirmed that the only socialist country in the world in Albania.”[559]
One other group of unknown antecedents also claimed association with Maoism in the late 1970s. This was the Revolutionary Communist Movement (MCR), which in 1978 “placed paid notices in national newspapers, signed by MCR President Douglas Crespo, calling for defense of the ‘purity of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung’s thought.’”[560]
Conclusion
None of the Maoist groups in Venezuela was able to engender any significant popular support. They had no influence in the trade union and peasant movements, and the only place where they did from time to time get some backing was among university students. Although the guerrilla activities of those led by Douglas Bravo (first a Castroite and then a Maoist) caused certain continuing embarrassment to successive governments, they were never really able to carry on a sustained guerrilla operation which endangered the regime once the PCV and most of the MIR had withdrawn from armed insurrection in 1967. No Maoist group put itself to the electoral test.
Part II Albania
Albanian Maoism
The Albanian Party of Labor was the one ruling Communist party that sided with Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Communist Party at the time of the break between Peking and Moscow. For a decade and a half it was the most important ally of the Chinese party, and Tirana, the Albanian capital, was second only to Peking (Beijing) as the center of “political tourism” for leaders of other Maoist parties.
Albanian Communism was a product of World War II. It came into existence in November 1941, as the result of efforts of the Yugoslav party and the Comintern. Partisan guerrilla groups, fighting the Italian occupiers of the country, had appeared in Albania almost simultaneously with the appearance of similar groups in Yugoslavia. Throughout the remainder of World War II, the Yugoslav and Albanian Communists worked closely together in the military and political struggle against the Axis. Two representatives of the Tito Yugoslav party supervised the emergence of the Albanian party as a more or less orthodox Marxist-Leninist organization from the original conglomeration of local groups that Nicolaos A. Stavrou described as being “thoroughly tribalized.”
The founding meeting of the Albanian Communist Party chose a seven-man provisional Central Committee. One of the Central Committee members, Enver Hoxha, was a compromise choice as Secretary-General—a job he was to hold for the rest of his life. All other members of the committee were, over time, purged and/or executed on Hoxha’s orders.
In the immediate postwar years, the close association of the Albanian Communists with the Yugoslav party continued. However, in 1948, after the break between Stalin and the Yugoslav party leadership, and a widespread blood purge within the ranks of the Albanian party, the Albanian Party of Labor joined the Soviet side in the Soviet—Yugoslavi dispute and roundly denounced the Tito leadership in Yugoslavia. Following that break with the Yugoslavs, the Albanian party and government received substantial economic, political, and military aid from the Soviet regime, and some Soviet military bases were established in Albania.
However, as the quarrel between the Soviet and Chinese Communist parties came out into the open, there was another blood purge of the Albanian party leadership in 1961, after which Enver Hoxha led it into denunciation of Soviet “modern revisionism” and association of the Albanian party and government with International Maoism. During this period the ideas of Mao Tsetung were pictured by Hoxha and the Albanian party leadership as being the only orthodox version of Marxism-Leninism.
However, with the death of Mao Tse-tung, there was another major purge in the leadership of the Albanian party, and Enver Hoxha and the Albanian Party of Labor turned violently against Mao’s successors. Hoxha not only attacked them as “revisionists” but also began to attack the late Mao Tse-tung himself, particularly his Three Worlds Theory.
Thereafter, until the overthrow of the Communist regime in Albania, the Albanian Party of Labor led a major schism within the ranks of what remained of International Maoism. A variety of Maoist parties indicated their support of Hoxha’s post-1976 position, even after the death of Enver Hoxha in 1986. Thus, in 1987, there were delegates from what Nicolaos Stavrou described as “splinter Marxist groups” attending congresses of both the Albanian trade union federation and the Albanian party’s youth group.[561]
Part III Africa and Asia
Maoism in Africa and Asia
A priori, one might have expected Maoism to have its greatest appeal in Asia and Africa. Most of the nations on those continents were clearly part of the Third World, which the Chinese Communists sought to lead. Their populations were mainly rural, a fact that would seem to favor the Chinese thesis of “the countryside surrounding the cities” through a rural-based guerrilla war.
In fact, however, Maoism was close to nonexistent in Africa, while in the Middle East it had scant support. Only in the Asian countries bordering China did Maoism become a significant political and paramilitary factor.
There were undoubtedly several factors that explained the failure of Maoism to be of any real significance in Africa and much of Asia. One of these was the inherent conflict between the Chinese leaders’ role as fomenters of a worldwide political movement and their interests as rulers of a nation. In virtually all cases, the latter turned out to be more important than the former.
557
Robert J. Alexander, in
558
Robert J. Alexander in
559
Carole Merten, in
561
Nikolaos Stavrou, in