In his last article, the Odio de Clase collective from Spain has put the mask away. It upholds Marxism-Leninism, and not Maoism any more. It is a jump in the capitulation before the Spanish tradition of “Marxism-Leninism” in a mix of Hoxhaism and revisionism, economist “redskins” culture and cult of the 1930's, “anti-imperialism” in the form of anti-americanism.

It is also a jump which is, indeed, not a surprise for anyone disappointed by this Collective (see Odio de Clase's way to relativism and centrism).

In the past, it informed a lot about Maoist organizations in the world, it played a very positive role, serving as an intermediary between Maoist structures.

The situation turned nevertheless in its contrary, because the Collective was incapable to analyze its own country in a dialectical materialist way. Therefore, images of Stalin replaced the content, anti-imperialism became a strategy and an identity.

In fact, the more the economical crisis deepened in Spain, the less the Collective was able to deal with it. So, it capitulated, and the pretext was the death of Chavez, that the collective refused to reject as a reactionary leader (see: The question of Hugo Chávez in the ICM).

The question of semi-colonialism and semi-feudalism

According Maoism, the world is divided in imperialist countries and semi-colonial countries. In those semi-colonial countries, capitalism is bureaucratic, the governement is led by the bureaucratic bourgeoisie and by the landlords.

This line does not permit “anti-imperialism”, where imperialism is a world system, where “national states” play a positive role, where revisionist armed struggles play a revolutionary role, etc.

Therefore, the Odio de Clase collective, which abandoned Spain and turned to a mere “anti-imperialism”, dropped the so important thesis of semi-colonialism and semi-feudalism.

It was the price to pay to celebrate the Taliban or the Syrian state as “anti-imperialist” forces.

Understanding that such a line was unacceptable for the genuine Maoists, the Odio de Clase collective began to reject “dogmatism” and fell in the arms of the centrists, led by the Maoist Communist Party of Italy (with the “Maoist Road” blog).

This has a very funny aspect: whereas before the Odio de Clase collective was rejected by the centrists as “virtual”, “leftist”, etc., the centrists very welcomed the change of line.

Odio de Clase and the traditional hoxhaist attacks against Mao Zedong

The Odio de Clase collective, in its last article, rejects so Maoism in the name of different reasons: the fact that Mao considered the revisionist and social-imperialist USSR as the main enemy, the diplomacy with European imperialist countries against the USSR, tolerance with the regime of Franco in Spain, etc.

These cases are nothing new; they are the traditional anti-Maoist arguments spread by both revisionism and Hoxhaism.

Revisionists and Hoxhaists use the influence of the Chinese revisionists led by Deng Xiaoping to attack Mao Zedong, they spread confusion about Politics and official diplomacy, etc.

But in fact it goes more deeply. The main theoretical problem is that the “Marxists-Leninists” reject the principle of the “main contradiction”.

In “On contradiction”, Mao Zedong teaches us the following:

“As we have said, one must not treat all the contradictions in a process as being equal but must distinguish between the principal and the secondary contradictions, and pay special attention to grasping the principal one. But, in any given contradiction, whether principal or secondary, should the two contradictory aspects be treated as equal?

Again, no. In any contradiction the development of the contradictory aspects is uneven. Sometimes they seem to be in equilibrium, which is however only temporary and relative, while unevenness is basic.

Of the two contradictory aspects, one must be principal and the other secondary. The principal aspect is the one playing the leading role in the contradiction. The nature of a thing is determined mainly by the principal aspect of a contradiction, the aspect which has gained the dominant position.

But this situation is not static; the principal and the non-principal aspects of a contradiction transform themselves into each other and the nature of the thing changes accordingly.

In a given process or at a given stage in the development of a contradiction, A is the principal aspect and B is the non-principal aspect; at another stage or in another process the roles are reversed--a change determined by the extent of the increase or decrease in the force of each aspect in its struggle against the other in the course of the development of a thing.”

This is rejected both by modern revisionists and by the Hoxhaists. Of course, the Odio de Clase collective rejects it too.

Odio de Clase follows the pragmatic-machiavelical line

In its article, Odio de Clase explains in a very correct way that its position is in the same perspective as the Communist Party of the Philippines, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and the Communist Party of Turkey / Marxist-Leninist (TKP/ML).

This is indeed correct: at the end of the 1990's, those parties produced even a common review, Vanguard, openly opposed to the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement and the Communist Party of Peru.

They promoted a pragmatic-machiavelical line, and they still do this. It is the traditional anti “dogmatic” trend, basically opposed to the teachings of Gonzalo and the Communist Party of Peru.

And it is easy to see where this trend goes: to the negation of dialectical materialism as law of eternal matter in transformation, to the shortening of Maoism in “Politics”, to the petty bourgeois ideology of speaking of an “oligarchy” in its own country and of seeing the US imperialism as a kind of monster full of plots and shenanigans.

The battle for the leading thought in each country

Dialectical materialism consists in many teachings, from the law of contradiction to Socialist realism, from semi-colonialism to People's Democracy. This is all very easy and very complicated at the same time.

And when we see that this must also be understood by people produced by the class struggle in a given country – as only them can understand properly the revolutionary aspect of dialectical materialism as science, this makes the things harder.

But this is not all: those people must produce a leading thought, formulated by a comrade understanding the history of his own country, with all its contradictions. Then only, the revolutionary strategy – people's war – can be successful!

This is what the Odio de Clase collective decided to avoid in Spain – this is the task that we accepted in France. We produce deep studies about the history of our country, about the culture and the class struggle. We defend dialectical materialism. And with such a basis, we shall produce the new comrades, for the coming storm in our country!

For archive, Odio de Clase's statement.

ODC actualmente ya no se reivindica maoísta, sino marxista-leninista. A raíz de la muerte de Hugo Chavez somos objeto de una campaña de ataques de fuerzas "maoístas" por defender que consideramos a Chavez anti-imperialista y progresista. Para ODC algo no marcha bien cuando fuerzas que se reivindican "maoístas" califican a Chavez - tambien a Allende- de fascista y se alegran por su muerte.

Esta polémica en torno a Chavez lleva a ODC a entrar en un periodo de reflexión, profundización del estudio y debate interno. Fruto del estudio, lectura y reflexión de algunos documentos, ODC descubre errores cometidos por Mao, sobre todo en la política internacional, que consideramos bastante graves. Sin renegar ni renunciar a los aportes positivos de Mao, sin caer en el anti-maoismo, consideramos que fueron errores muy graves, entre otros, el considerar a la revisionista y socialimperialista URSS como mayor enemigo que EE.UU y fruto de ello el acercamiento a EEUU y la Unión Europea para "frenar" y contrarrestar a la socialimperialista URSS.

Esto fue un error muy grave que llevo a aberraciones injustificables como no condenar a la Junta Militar de Chile encabezada por sanguinario Pinochet, a la tolerancia con el regimen criminal de Franco o a apoyar a España en su incorporación a la entonces llamada Comunidad Económica Europea, como integrante del “bloque occidental”.

Los comunistas debemos ser honestos y autocríticos, no podemos cerrar los ojos ante tamanos errores y debemos extraer enseñanzas de los mismos. Como conclusión decimos que ODC es marxista-leninista y no maoísta, que ODC no es anti-maoísta, que ODC toma en cuenta los oportes positivos de Mao, y que ODC además en muchos temas coincidimos con las posiciones del PCI (Maoísta), el Partido Comunista de Filipinas o el Partido Comunista de Turquia / Marxista-Leninista TKPML TIKKO, los cuales protagonizan guerras populares que apoyamos y vamos a seguir apoyando.