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Self-description: This organization has claimed to defend Stalin consistently. It also mentions upholding Mao, but it regards Mao as a "Marxist-Leninist" and not someone who took Marxism-Leninism to a new stage.
Comments: The PTB is a large and internationally influential party. If the numerical center of gravity amongst those calling themselves "communist" is not in Indian conferences of the sub-continent, then the European conferences called by leader Ludo Martens of the PTB are the numerical center of gravity in the year 2000 by attracting up to 136 organizations from all the continents.
An expert on Francophone Africa, Ludo Martens may be the most prolific writer in the world calling him or herself communist. However, he has regressed politically since his youth when he upheld Maoism. In particular, he defends Mao's thesis on the bourgeoisie in the party, but he does not see it as advancing Marxism-Leninism to a new stage, which is another way of saying it's not a cardinal question. Meanwhile, he tends to encourage Brezhnevites and "Stalinists" for raising geopolitical questions against Mao as if they were reasons for not accepting the theory of the new bourgeoisie in the party as a cardinal principle.
Finally we must beg our readers' pardon if they are reading this and PTB has changed its position. Having fallen for "back to Leninism" and Gorbachev at one time, and still calling China, Cuba and northern Korea "socialist," it would not surprise us to see another swing in direction.
The PTB faces large-scale competition from an effort by the MLPD (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany) and the Communist Party of the Philippines, the RIM (which stole our name) and, hopefully, increasingly the MIM and the leaders of People's War in the Third World. For these reasons, the next major regroupment of international so-called communist parties is guaranteed to pay more lip-service to Mao and Stalin. See, MIM's criticism of the PTB-led "International Communist Seminar".