One of the reasons I was drawn to Maoism was because of its conceptualization of the imperfect party. That is, rather than seeing the party as a top down monolith that enforces perfect discipline, Maoism recognizes the importance of line struggle, endorses the messiness that this brings, and sees such struggle as a way to renew the party formation. Of course, being aware of this conception of the party and experiencing it are two different things. Hence my sadness upon discovering that the Maoist organization I support, and that is growing across Canada, has now entered a stage of acute line struggle. Since I have written about the importance of line struggle as key to an understanding of the Maoist Party of the New Type (in Continuity and Rupture and elsewhere) I of course don't see the PCR-RCP's recent entrance into a stage of acute line struggle as undermining Maoism. Rather, it confirms what we Maoists have always said: line struggle is inescapable since we bring all of ...
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist reflections