Organizing Committee for a Maoist Communist Party (US)

February 22, 2018

Proletarian revolutionaries, democratic elements, and the masses the world over have been following the case of the reading group participants detained by Xi Jinping’s revisionist regime last November. For comrades unfamiliar with the case, here are firsthand accounts from the comrades in question and a description of the arrest and the revisionists’ justification for carrying out these arrests.

“On November 15, 2017, police stormed into a student reading group at the Guangdong University of Technology (GDUT) and seized six participants, including four current students at the university and two recent graduates from other schools. The former were released the next day, but the latter two were placed under detention as suspects for the crime of “gathering crowds to disrupt social order” – a charge we have seen increasingly leveled against multiple feminists, labour activists, striking workers and bloggers over the past five years. Authorities alleged that the reading group was an “anti-party, anti-society organization” that was discussing “sensitive topics.”

What is the character of the regime that rules in China today? Is it a “Maoist” state of affairs? What is the class character of the “Communist” Party of China, which road has China been heading down since the coup staged by Deng Xiaoping against the revolutionaries Jiang Qing, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, and Yao Wenyuan and the subsequent gutting of all which, Maoists know, determines whether or not a country is socialist, or on the socialist road? The answer to both is capitalist. The Chinese masses, democratic personages, students, youth, and workers know this very well and wage struggles of all sorts against the state of affairs of things. Anyone who sees good in the state of affairs of modern-day, revisionist, social-imperialist China can not be a Maoist. It is China which is currently finishing the job the European imperialists started in Africa, exporting capital and labor, including a managerial class which has linked arms with compradors (local sellouts) in various African countries to jointly exploit the natural resources of that continent, along with the workforce.

It is extremely important to not confuse the fact that Maoists do not want the United States to go to war with China with the very real fact that the character of the modern day “People’s Republic” of China is social-imperialist, much like the USSR that the PRC broke from for the same reasons that Maoists break with the modern day PRC. Our comrades in China are very clear on the class character of the country in which they live, and they know which road that their country was dragged down before many of them were born. The fact that comrades in China who are studying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism have been labeled “anti-Party” and “anti-society” shows the fundamental, antagonistic (enemy) contradiction between genuine Maoism and the sham that revisionists both here and there try to proffer.

We were told long ago by Chairman Mao that the rise to power of revisionism means, in practice, in form and essence, the rise to power of the bourgeoisie, and the suppression that Maoists face in China is not so different from that which we revolutionaries in the US face. The repression is done by those with the same class interests and same class stand, that of the imperialist bourgeoisie, except in the United States we face naked bourgeois repression while in China it wears a red mask and occasionally plays with Mao’s corpse and Mao’s words. This is no different from the revisionist phony Soviets playing with Lenin’s words to justify exploiting the world and clamoring for war with China in the 1960s and 1970s. We were told long ago that if China would ever change its color, that the youth would inevitably rise up and overthrow the ghosts and monsters that seized control, and we see the germs of this revolution in these young comrades. Demonstrating, reading revolutionary works, struggling against exploitation, and various other manifestations of the people’s unsuppressable rage and class antagonism generate pushback from reactionaries like those that now run China, and we respond resolutely to the call placed by comrades in China for international solidarity demonstrations. We too want answers to comrade Sun Tingting’s questions.

I am not a criminal, and there is no evidence that I am a major suspect to a crime. Why should I be criminally detained?

Can the police detain absolutely anyone, and then search for evidence to prove the guilt of that person, and when no evidence is found, simply release the person, but the police will not face any discipline?

Can police arbitrarily search the residence of any citizen, and take away their personal belongings for an indefinite amount of time?

If during the course of questioning someone doesn’t answer to the police satisfaction, can they just “make up a charge and figure it out later?”

Can the police arbitrarily decide on either administrative or criminal detention “on the spot”?

Should I be bullied in detention, and seen as “uncooperative”, just because I insist on my rights in the face of the police?

Should I not be treated when I fall sick in detention?

Does 4 hour of sleep meet the legal requirement of “ensuring that suspects have sufficient time for sleep”?

Can I only be released on bail after agreeing to a confession in accordance with police instructions?

When the police detained an innocent person for more than 20 days and confiscated my books, computer, mobile phone, Kindle and other belongings, are these evidence of my crime? When can they be returned to me? I no longer have the money to buy those things.

Of course, the revisionists will not answer, just like the police in the United States will not give answers to the parents and loved ones of Mike Brown, Oscar Grant, Kiwi Herring, Vonderrit Myers, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and Eric Garner. The goal of a protest is to raise awareness, demonstrate people’s power, and expose the reactionary regime. We do not protest with the intent of changing the minds of those who have no material reason to do so. The bankrupt and liberal tactic of moral persuasion does not work on a state and an order that has absolutely no conscience except a reactionary, money driven, exploitative one. Reactionary violence and suppression goes hand in hand with a bourgeois regime that stands on the backs of the people. The only thing that the oppressed and exploited masses can do is struggle resolutely with words, propaganda, organization, and eventually, armed force. Comrades in China ask that we organize solidarity demonstrations using these placards, and we ask all supporters answer their call. Even further, if there is a Chinese consulate or embassy in your area, organize a phone jam demanding the immediate dropping of charges on the detained reading group participants, and bring your solidarity demonstration to the doorstep of the revisionists themselves. Unite with progressive and democratic organizations, educate your friends, classmates, co-workers, and other acquaintances, expose the true, un-socialist nature of acts such as these, and study revolutionary Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to see the difference between sham socialism and real socialism.