How common were Maoist groups in 1970s Britain?

[cronus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25110548

How common were Maoist groups in 1970s Britain?

The couple accused of holding three women as slaves for more than 30 years were activists in a Maoist group in London. It was a period when the UK had a plethora of small left-wing collectives and communes.

Aravindan Balakrishnan, known as Comrade Bala, and his wife Chanda ran a bookshop and commune from a large building in Brixton.

Balakrishnan had been a member of the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) in the early 1970s but split and formed his own collective in 1974 - the Workers' Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. It comprised about 25 people.

The group was not unusual. There were about 20 Maoist groups active in the UK in the 1970s, says Michel Hockx, director of the SOAS China Institute at SOAS, University of London. All followed the ideology of Chinese communist leader, Mao Zedong, who put industry under state ownership, collectivised farming and ruthlessly suppressed opposition.

"All [the UK groups] considered themselves Maoists, but they fought against each other about who was in possession of the right ideology," he says.

(continued)

[JimC]

And they'd all willingly shove an ice pick into the cranium of any trotskyite...

[cronus]

And they'd all willingly shove an ice pick into the cranium of any trotskyite...

Trotsky was right. Without permanent revolution there is no communism. Hope the ladies get enough money out of the tabloid press to set up their commune again without a boss telling them what to do.

[Clinton Huxley]

I'd say there were about two dozen such groups, Mao or less.

[JimC]

I once had a blue beret with a Mao badge on the front...

[Clinton Huxley]

How common were Maoist groups? Frightfully common, none of 'em could tell a fish fork from a salad fork.

[Calilasseia]

Ah, this business of left-wing groups fractionating and spawning like bacteria in a poorly microwaved pork pie, was satirised not only in The Life of Brian, but by the TV sitcom Citizen Smith. This practice continued into the early 1980s - I saw some hilarious instances thereof during my student days.

Oddly enough, I don't recall any Maoist groups being amongst them. Most of them were a sort of Cantor dust of quasi-orthodox Marxist groups, whose differences were about as perceptible to an outsider as ±1 differences in RGB colour codes. But then I wasn't in London.

[Svartalf]

I think maoist groups disappeared in the mid 70s, about the same time as the gang of 4 debacle...

[cronus]

Militant tendency was the big thing by the early eighties, at least until Labour expelled the LPYS and Labour funding stopped....and shortly after the printing facility for The Militant mysteriously burnt down - some considered it a inside job to push for a increase in fees and contributions to the fighting fund which was meant to replace the print-room. I never managed to sell a paper but the beer was good. I was a naive idealist...of the far left.

[Calilasseia]

Ah yes, I remember the jokes. Such as:

Heard about Derek Hatton's budgie? It has a millet tendency.

[JimC]

How common were Maoist groups? Frightfully common, none of 'em could tell a fish fork from a salad fork.