Announcement of Publication: Selected Works of W.B. Bland, Volume 1
We announce the book form publication of Volume 1 of Selected Works of W.B. Bland. We start this series of books with the topic of the unveiling of Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong) as a revisionist. Bland was one of the first to see through the camouflage that still wraps itself around Mao. This seeks to portray Mao as a great Marxist-Leninist. In 1968 Bland tore the camouflage to expose the reality of the State Owned Enterprises. Socialism was never established in China.
Below follows the 2025 foreword that accompanies the reprinting of Bland’s work. Details of the book availability is via Erythros Press and Media, LLC (PO Box 294994, Kettering, OH 45429-0994, media@erythrospress.com) and/or Amazon follow below:
Purchase via Erthyros Press and Media, LLC
Foreword, by Hari Kumar
This is the first of a series of volumes that will publish in book form the key works written by the British Marxist-Leninist W.B. (Bill) Bland (1916-2001).
Bland has long been a controversial figure in the Marxist-Leninist movement. This printing of Volume 1 commences the first hard-copy major printing of Bland’s works since his path-breaking book ‘Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR’ which was published by Bland himself. We chose the content of Volume 1 to reflect the pivotal role it played in the Marxist-Leninist movement – but also in Bland’s own political development.
Bland was a long-time rank-and-file cadre of the CP New Zealand (CPNZ), and then the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) for many years. Although he became a Branch Secretary of part of Ilford, the Seven Kings branch – he never regarded himself as anything like a leader. Rather he saw himself as a comrade whose use to the party lay in being a local cadre Marxist educator, no more. That was also the attitude in the leaderships of CPNZ and CPGB. Bland did not disagree, viewing himself as “an ordinary bloke”, in comparison to party leaders:
“At that time I took the view that all these people are influential highly esteemed Marxist-Leninists, and I’m just an ordinary bloke.“
(Bland Interview ”In Memoriam: William B. Bland 1916-2001”; Interview Performed by JP with Bill Bland, 10th July 1994, Great Northern Hotel, Euston; Interview 1994)
However along with others, he was forced to fathom the meaning of two seismic events. First came the adoption of the “British Road to Socialism” in 1951 by the CPGB, and then shortly after came the 20th Communist Party Soviet Union (Bolshevik) [CPSU(B)] Congress in Moscow in 1956. In facing these events, he was driven to ask “What are the fundamental Marxism-Leninist teachings on state and revolution?” In his words, he “became a dissident”. Marxist-Leninists were then confronted with the “Sino-Soviet” Debate and ultimately the Sino-Soviet split.
Thankfully, or so it seemed to Bill – and to other Marxist-Leninists – that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) led by the Communist Party of China (CPC) remained on the socialist path. Many of the small band therefore joined an exodus of Marxist-Leninists into new formations, which largely supported the PRC. These were the ‘Committee to Defeat Revisionism and for Communist Unity’ (CDRCU), which very quickly became the ‘Action Center for Marxist-Leninist Unity.’ In turn, that led to the ‘Marxist-Leninist Organisation of Britain’ (MLOB).
Then the “Great Leap Forward in China” was launched, and very soon after followed “The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” (GPCR) . Immediately following this a member of the MLOB working in China experienced what he considered ‘fascist’ acts. Bill was instructed to investigate the GPCR:
“WB: We had a member who was working in China. He came back and described how the Red Guards… he worked in a gramophone shop in Peking… and described how the cultural revolution people had burst into his shop and smashed all the records such as Beethoven, and only a few acceptable records were allowed to be circulated, and he felt that this was ‘fascist’. He said quite frankly, ‘I’m no longer a supporter of the cultural revolution, there is something that is definitely wrong’. As a result of this they gave me the job of researching Mao Tse-tung thought and preparing a report…
I brought my draft report back which then defined Mao Tse-tung thought as being a form of revisionism, and naturally this caused tremendous upset within the MLOB.”
(Interview with Bland Ibid.)
Thus began his first theoretical work. It is remarkable that he had not taken on any such task until relatively late in life. But again, Bland saw himself as a foot-soldier in Marxism-Leninism, and had no pretensions to being a theorist. However, once asked to examine Maoism by the Marxist-Leninist fraction he belonged to, well – he would so rather thoroughly.
As Paul Saba, a co-editor of the ‘Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On Line’ notes, the work led to “some notoriety” for the MLOB:
“In the period 1967 to 1974 Bill Bland drafted a number of reports for the MLOB, including on the cultural revolution in China, and on the ’centrist’ parties of North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba and the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
The 1968 Cultural Revolution report in particular gained considerable notoriety by siding with Liu Shaoqi against Mao as the true Marxist-Leninist. In this, the MLOB was similar to a number of other European anti-revisionists who could not accept the Maoist critique of Liu, including Jacques Grippa in Belgium and the Centre marxiste-léniniste de France.”
(Paul Saba; “Anti-Revisionism in the United Kingdom – The First Wave of Anti-Revisionism: The Early 1960s – Index Page”: at https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/uk.firstwave/index.htm)
Thus Bland’s investigation was an early – if not the first – Marxist-Leninist exposure of Mao Tse-Tung (Mao Ze Dong) in 1968. That 1968 Report is available in full at the Marxist Internet Archive (MIA) at Bland – China_1968
In a nutshell, Bland’s main conclusion was that the:
“Mao Tse-tung faction, (was) a disguised counter-revolutionary headquarters… The temporary loss of Peking and a part of China to counter-revolution is a set-back to the working class of the world, just as was the temporary loss of the Soviet Union.
But this counter-revolutionary violence accompanied by unparalleled demagogy and intrigue cannot prevent for long the revolutionary working people of China, led by its working class and under the leadership of organised Marxist-Leninists.
(“In Conclusion 1968 Report Ibid)
It is appropriate then to devote this Volume 1 of the “Selected Works of Bland” to his Report on China. However, we here print the later revised and more complete version produced in 1997 – rather than the First 1968 edition. Why?
In his later updating of the 1968 analysis, that was published in 1997, Bland openly and frankly corrected an error that had been made in the original first 1968 version (“Report of the Central Committee of the M.L.O.B. On the Situation in the People’s Republic of China”; ‘Red Front January 1968’; at https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/uk.firstwave/mlob-on-china/index.htm).
For Bland had previously erroneously concluded in 1968 that the Marxist-Leninists in the CPC who were on the defensive to that point, were led by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping:
“In November 1966 posters appeared in Peking denouncing the leading Marxist-Leninists Liu Shao-chi, President, of the People’s Republic of China, and Teng-Hsiao-ping, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party, as “leaders of an anti-Party group”. Section entitled “The Attack Upon Liu Shao-Chi And Teng Hsaio-Ping”; in 1968 Report at: https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/periodicals/britain/red-front/mlob-on-china/section30.htm
In the 1997 throughly revised edition, Bland openly acknowledged and corrected this error. That is shown in this work contained here in Volume 1 “Selected Works of W.B.Bland”. In fact the Marxists-leninists were led by Gao Gang. In Bland’s 1997 edition, Liu was now identified as a member of the CPC representing the interests of the national bourgeoisie.
That error notwithstanding, the early exposure of the so-called “Proletarian Cultural Counter-Revolution” and the “Thought of Mao Tse-tung” – had anticipated even the later exposure by the Party of Labour of Albania of China. The 1968 work by Bland began his long theoretical career. Bland went on to become most recognised as an early and accomplished advocate of the ‘Peoples Socialist Republic of Albania’ (PSRA).
At core, his first theoretical venture had led him to want to understand the roots of 20th-century revisionism. He began to ask “How, when and where did the rot begin?”
This would lead him into further controversy with fashionable trends. Indeed Bland provided analyses of a wide range of 20th century revisionisms. Bland defined what revisionism meant for him very early in his writings as follows:
“Revisionism is the perversion of Marxism-Leninism so as to produce an ideology which – while claiming to be ‘the creative development of Marxism-Leninism” in order to deceive the working class – in reality serves the interests of the capitalist class.” “Report of the CC of the MLOB On Centrist Revisionism”; March 1970;
In an early example, he and Maureen Scott (a joint co-founder of the MLOB with Bland, and Mike Baker – her husband) exposed Fidel Castro and Che Guevara as anti-Marxist-Leninists. Morever even further departing from ‘received wisdom’ Bland went on to show that J.V. Stalin was in a minority of Marxists-Leninists engaged in a war within the USSR, against hidden revisionists. Bland further argued, that in this process, even the Comintern had come under revisionist control and led it to major failures for the working classes.
We intend to include these various exposures in the future volumes of the “Selected Works”.
Bland undertook a massive programme of research. What methods did Bland use? We noted above that Bland fundamentally always asked one question: “Is this policy/statement/writing – consistent with Marxist-Leninist theory?” Of course, there was a bit more to it. Bland himself summarised his own research methods as “Take nothing for granted; check everything!“ (On Historical Research at MLRG.online ).
Such a simple but effective method was derided by some. For example,e one well-known Marxist-Leninist told me it consisted only of “holding up a perforated piece of paper and seeing where the perforations aligned with Marxism-Leninism”. According to this learned Cambridge University graduate, this was not any ‘original thinking’ of a Marxist-Leninist.
But Bland did not aspire to be ‘original’. In reality, the post-Stalin era required exactly this type of methodical and systematic approach. Bland advised Marxist-Leninist researchers to painstakingly turn every historical or theoretical stone of potential bearing on any specific topic-upside down – and re-examine given dogma. He disclaimed any special attribute, mocking himself for doing such a boring task by saying only “anti-social” people did this.
Our Cambridge graduate also said that since Bland did not know Russian he could not adequately interpret the events of the USSR. This carries only a very superficial credibility. For it renders any non-Russian-literate person’s opinion on the USSR of no value. Besides, unless that Cambridge graduate was a remarkable polyglot knowing Albanian, Chinese or Tibetan – how could he himself assess the state of Albania or China or Tibet, etc? Given the international support the USSR had received historically, and the number of well-researched volumes on the USSR in English – this was simply a blatant attempt to ‘cancel’ Bland.
I contend that notwithstanding the Cambridge graduate’s and Bland’s modest self-assessment, his overall work did result in an ‘original’ picture. How so? For Bland constructed an enduring view of the rise of 20th-century revisionism and how it effectively destroyed the international Marxist-Leninist movement. He steered between the Scylla of Trotskyism – while avoiding a simplistic, ‘equal and opposite’ Charybdis reaction. Bland recognized that not all “Marxist-Leninist” dogma about the history of the CPSU(B) and the Comintern was correct.
Interestingly, with time, some strands of Bland’s analysis have been absorbed and taken over by others. When this has happened, it has usually been without due acknowledgment.
Building an alternate world view that explained events while remaining a Marxist-Leninist demanded an unusual personality. It required hard work, obstinacy and determination. Bland mixed those characteristics with a thorough knowledge of Marxism-Leninism. But he also had a mischievious streak and he enjoyed being ‘insubordinate’. This comes through in his anecdotes about his army life in NZ. (Interview Ibid 10th July 1994, Ibid).
Future Volumes
The immediate next volume of Selected Works of W.B. Bland will be entitled “Companion Volume 1A”, and will shortly be published. It contains several explanatory materials on Bland’s struggle with Chinese revisionism. It includes an essay placing Volume 1 of “Selected Works” into its context within the British Marxist-Leninist responses to the CPGB revisionism. This will trace in more detail the events leading to Bland’s critique of Mao. “Companion Volume 1A” will also contain much of Bland’s correspondence with other Marxist-Leninists in Britain, and the ‘Party of Labour Albania’. These allow events in the movement of the period 1968-1980 to be placed into some perspective. In addition, the volume will carry a personal recollection of Bill from Norberto Steimayr; and the interview conducted with Bland before his death by J.P.
Current availability of Works by W.B.Bland
Many of Bland’s books and writings are available in a web-form – largely published by his comrades at Alliance Marxist-Leninist (https://ml-review.ca/aml/); Marxist-Leninist Currents Today (https://mlcurrents.net/); and most latterly (Marxist-Leninist Research Group Online (MLRG.online). In addition, there are several Bland materials to be found on the Marxist Internet Archive (https://www.marxists.org/).
