One issue is important for understanding of Maoism: to what extent has Gonzalo positions with conform to the teachings of Mao Zedong that « nothing is indivisible »? Should we consider Gonzalo as the one who carried the flag of Maoism after the counter-revolution in people’s China in 1976?
Let’s look at the different points here. Already, we must see that, in the well-known Interview, Gonzalo sees his travel to China as the starting point of his understanding of ideology.
“I’ve been to China. In China I had the chance, which I’d like to see many have, of being in a school where politics was taught, from international questions to Marxist philosophy. They were masterful lessons given by proven and highly competent revolutionaries, great teachers.
Among them I can remember the teacher who taught us about open and secret work, a man who had devoted his whole life to the Party, and only to the Party, over the course of many years–a living example and an extraordinary teacher. He taught us many things, and he wanted to teach us more but some didn’t accept it–after all, there are all sorts of people in this life.
Later, they taught us about military questions. But here they also began with politics, people’s war, then the forging of the armed forces, strategy and tactics. And then the practical part that went with it, like ambushes, attacks, military movements, as well as how to assemble explosive devices. When we were handling delicate chemicals they urged us to always keep our ideology first and foremost, because that would enable us to do anything, and do it well.
We learned to make our first demolition charges. For me it is an unforgettable example and experience, an important lesson, and a big step in my development–to have been trained in the highest school of Marxism the world has ever seen.
Well, if you’d like an anecdote, here’s one.
When we were finishing the course on explosives, they told us that anything can explode. So, at the end of the course, we picked up a pen and it blew up, and when we took a seat it blew up, too. It was a kind of general fireworks display. These were perfectly calculated examples to show us that anything could be blown up if you figured out how to do it.
We constantly asked, « How do you do this? How do you do that? » They would tell us, don’t worry, don’t worry, you’ve already learned enough. Remember what the masses can do, they have inexhaustible ingenuity, what we’ve taught you the masses will do and will teach you all over again. That is what they told us. That school contributed greatly to my development and helped me begin to gain an appreciation for Chairman Mao Zedong.
Later, I studied some more and I have tried to apply it. I think I still have a great deal to learn from Chairman Mao Zedong, from Maoism, as well as from Mao’s practice. It isn’t about trying to compare myself to him, it is simply using the highest pinnacles as a reference point for achieving our objectives. My stay in China was an unforgettable experience.
I was there on another occasion as well, when the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was beginning. We asked them to explain what was then called Mao Zedong Thought. They taught us some more and that helped me understand more, a little more I should say.”
There are three elements that might go unnoticed, but which are of paramount importance:
– “they told us that anything can explode”: hint that everything is divisible;
– Gonzalo speaks of “the highest school of Marxism the world has ever seen”;
– It is emphasized that the GPCR provides a deeper knowledge of the teachings of Mao Zedong: “when the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was beginning… They taught us some more and that helped me understand more, a little more I should say.”
The “little more” is of great significance, because it is a little more precisely permitted by the GPCR!
We find further this issue of non-indivisibility, “I believe that fear and lack of fear form a contradiction.” This is clearly an allusion to the fact that everything divides.
There is another allusion, extremely subtle, where Gonzalo begins with human history and ends with the universal movement of matter through a metaphor that is not one:
“I think that the worst fear, in the end, is not to have faith in the masses, to believethat you’re indispensable, the center of the world. I think that’s the worst fear and if you are forged by the Party, in proletarian ideology, in Maoism principally, you understand that the masses are the makers of history, that the Party makes revolution, that the advance of history is certain, that revolution is the main trend, and then your fear vanishes.
What remains is the satisfaction of contributing together with others to lay the foundation so that some day communism may shine and illuminate the entire earth.”
When Gonzalo says: “What remains is the satisfaction of contributing together with others to lay the foundation” – in spanish “de ser argamasa y, junto a otras argamasas, servir a poner cimiento” which means “to be mortar and, along with other mortars, to lay the foundation” – it is not voluntarism, but an allusion to the general and inevitable transformation of matter.
In the same way, Gonzalo explains in a subtle manner that communism will “shine and illuminate the entire earth.”
But what “shines and illuminates”? The sun, of course! Gonzalo is referring here to the sun, bringing energy and allowing the Earth to gleam!
This is the famous sun illuminating the planet earth strucked by the hammer and sickle that is found in all Soviet emblems, the “red sun” put forward by the communists in China!
Let’s continue even further in the interpretation of what Gonzalo says. He said, seemingly innocuous, that “many times I don’t have time to read what I’d like to”.
Apparently, this is a simple observation – nevertheless, dialectical materialism oozes from every pore of this sentence. Gonzalo speaks of reading, something that takes place in space, and he opposes time to it!
Gonzalo, with this simple sentence, refers to the contradiction between space and time, we must here remember that he did his doctoral dissertation on the concept of space in Kant, Gonzalo also alludes to a little further : “This inclination for science can be seen in the thesis that I wrote for my degree in philosophy. It is an analysis of time and space according to Kant, from a Marxist point of view, using mathematics and physics.”
All this clearly shows that Gonzalo always explains and explains himself based on the principle, our principle, that nothing is indivisible.