Anti-Revisionism in Switzerland

Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line

Anti-Revisionism in Switzerland

In Switzerland (as in Belgium and Spain), the first anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist communist parties and organizations were formed in the opening stages of the polemic against modern revisionism. Unlike the general European experience where multiple organizations were the rule, Switzerland saw the early emergence of a single organization. Nonetheless, it had an inauspicious start as described by veteran activist Nils Andersson:

In Switzerland, the regrouping of the Marxist-Leninists took a particular turn: a political adventurer there created a Swiss communist party; it was necessary to know and expose his role as a provocateur, especially when the international press used him to create confusion with his statements.

He was unmasked very quickly and this attempt to infiltrate the young Marxist-Leninist movement failed. Because of this, the Organization of Swiss Communists (OSC) was created to respond to this provocation, but without doing the ideological and political work necessary for the constitution of a party. Nils Andersson, “The origins of the Marxist-Leninist movement in Europe,” Unity & Struggle, No. 28, September 2014

The tri-lingual nature of Swiss society is reflected in the richness of sources available but little of which finds an expression in the English language translation. This selection of material here provides a broad outline of the organizational development of Swiss anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninists from the early 1960s to their disappearance in the 1980s and the new organizations in the 21st century inspired by a Maoist perspective.