for debate - Why did the Communist Workers’ Union (MLM) not participate in the Maoist International Conference organized by the CCIMU?

Why did the Communist Workers’ Union (MLM) not participate in the Maoist International Conference organized by the CCIMU?

In the virtual newspaper Communist International the holding of the International Maoist Conference organized by the Coordinating Committee for the Unified Maoist International Conference (CCIMU) has been announced as «historic news», and in the Declaration1 -issued from that event- it is reported that an international organization has been created which will be called the «International Communist League». Some comrades wonder why the Communist Workers Union (mlm) of Colombia does not appear among the organizations and parties signatories of that Declaration. We expose here why we decided not to participate in that Conference, which far from being «Unified» as announced, represents the positions of a particular hue within the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists.

Since its foundation in August 1998, on principle the Communist Workers Union (mlm) has fought for the international unity of the revolutionary communists, today the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists. From the time when the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) existed, the Union, without having been able to be a member of that organization, recognized it as an international center, abiding by its orientation without renouncing the struggle around the divergences of principle; it was among the first to denounce the betrayal of the revolutionary process in Nepal and the complicit silence of the RIM leadership; in the Program for the Revolution in Colombia, in the theoretical magazine Negación de la Negación in whose number 5 was published the Proposal for the Formulation of a General Line for the Unity of the International Communist Movement, in the International Declarations, there has always been room for the commitment to the principle of fighting for the international unity of the communists, with the aim of contributing to overcome the organizational dispersion of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organizations and parties after the debacle of RIM.

Under this internationalist spirit, the VIII Assembly of the Communist Workers Union (mlm) held in October 2009, issued a Call to the communists of all countries to prepare an International Conference; position ratified in December 2019 in the article of the digital Portal Revolucion Obrera, entitled For a Unified or Joint International Conference of the Marxist Leninist Maoists! Forward!2 , and in the Declarations of two international meetings held in Italy, always reaffirming the call to organize a joint Conference of all the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organizations and parties and not only of a particular hue.

It was in January 2022 when some comrades who had formed a Coordinating Committee for the Unified Maoist International Conference (CCIMU), published in the virtual newspaper Communist International a proposal entitled For a Unified Maoist International Conference! Proposal about the balance of the International Communist Movement and its current General Political Line 3 , also known as Bases of Discussion, a proposal to which was answered with a Pronouncement 4where the erroneous positions are criticized and it is shown that this document mainly represents the positions and particular interests of a hue and cry within the Maoist Marxist-Leninists. Consequently, the Union made public a proposal for a Platform of Unity 5 that would really express the basis of unity existing within the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists and not of a single hue.

In the virtual newspaper Communist International several texts appeared furiously attacking thePronouncement and defending to the hilt the proposal of Bases of Discussion, despite the fact that other comrades like the Communist Party of Turkey (Marxist-Leninist), the Construction Committee of the Maoist Communist Party of Galicia and the Maoist Communist Party of Italy, had also pronounced themselves critically, without receiving any response from the defenders of the Bases of Discussion.

In the month of August 2022 a formal invitation was received from the Coordinating Committee for the Unified Maoist International Conference to participate in the Conference, to which at the time it was responded that the decision was going to be consulted to all the militancy in the maximum democratic event that at that time was going to be held: the XIV Assembly. There, the organization ratified its commitment to the preparation and realization of an International Conference of the Marxist Leninist Maoists that was truly Unified and not a Conference reduced to the positions of a nuance within the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists. At the same time, the decision was taken not to participate in the Conference organized by the CCIMU, because the document of Bases of Discussion that had been presented did not represent a common general basis that would allow the participation of all the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists who had already demarcated camps with the main danger for the unity of the communists, the avakianist and prachandist neo-revisionism, but they correspond mainly to the positions of a certain nuance. The Communist Workers Union (mlm) considered that in this situation, there were no conditions for its participation in this Conference, if in addition to the hostile atmosphere, lacking in comradeship, plagued by sectarian methods and disqualifying practices, manifested in several organizations through their responses to theStatement issued on the Basis of Discussion. The decision not to participate in the Conference organized by the CCIMU, was communicated to the comrades in the same month of August 2022.

The non-participation in this event, by the comrades of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the Communist Party of India (Maoist), the Construction Committee of the Maoist Communist Party of Galicia, the Maoist Communist Party of Italy, the Maoist Communist Party of Afghanistan, among other Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organizations and parties, is evidence that the Conference held was not «unified» as announced; for our part we renew to the comrades participating in that Conference and of the new organization International Communist League, the fraternal call to give primacy to the general needs of the world class struggle, which impose as a necessity the struggle for unity in a truly unified International Conference of all Marxist-Leninist-Maoists, a struggle to which the Union remains fully committed.

Direction Committee – Communist Workers Union (mlm)
Colombia, December 27, 2022