If we are to rely on the numerous publications appearing in the last few months from Marxist-Leninist groups – among which are included the latest issues of the journal Mobilisation[1], the newspaper Red Star/Etoile Rouge[2] of the Cellule Ouvriere Revolutionnaire (C.O.R.), Un premier pas vers 1’unification des marxistes-leninistes[3] which marks the integration of the G.R.I.P. with the Mouvement Revolutionnaire des Etudiants du Quebec (M.R.E.Q.), and De quelques questions brulantes sur la ligne tactique[4], brochure of the Cellule Militante Ouvriere (C.M.O.) – it seems that most Quebec Marxist-Leninists have finally come to recognize that they must center their activities, at this stage, on agitation and propaganda in order to win over the advanced workers to communism and to lay the foundations of the Party.
But when we consider the stands taken by most of these same groups on a question currently as “burning” in Quebec, among Marxist-Leninists, as that of whether or not to maintain the Comite de Solidarite avec les Luttes Ouvrieres (C.S.L.O.), we must realize that a correct understanding of the principles of Marxism-Leninism can only be verified on the basis of their application to a concrete situation. There are, at this time, Marxist-Leninist, groups which, in taking a stand on the C.S.L.O., formulate their viewpoint as follows: Since at the present time, the main task of Marxist-Leninists involves the winning over of the advanced workers to communism, it is completely correct for them to create “intermediate” organizations (i.e, organizations which fall between the communist Party – the vanguard – and mass organizations). The C.S.L.O. must be considered as one of these organizations which are anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, opposed to national oppression, but non-communist, whose goal is to reach the masses and mobilize them in support of workers’ struggles.
The evident contradictions existing in this stand would be resolved, according to the supporters of the C.S.L.O., by the sole fact that the C.S.L.O., or the support to workers’ struggles (the one being equivalent to the other, in their opinion) is a secondary activity which is by no means opposed to and, should not be concerned with the principal one.
No one will argue that growing roses is not in contradiction with breeding pigs, but everyone has the right to ask oneself by what means one of these activities helps the other. Thus, when we pursue an objective (and communists today have as an objective to win over to Marxism-Leninism the advanced workers and to build the Party) we can use various means to attain it, some of which are more important than others (and the principal means of communists to attain their present objective are communist propaganda and agitation), but all means used must have as their main characteristic to favour the progress of the realization of the objective pursued. Thus, all the activities of Canadian communists must at this time, be carried out in order to achieve the merger of Marxism-Leninism and of the workers movement, to win over to communism the advanced workers, to lay the foundations of the Party among the proletariat.
In studying the place or the role of the C.S.L.O. we must ask ourselves in what way the popular support for workers struggles as conceived and realized by the C.S.L.O. up to now, can favour the creation of a workers communist vanguard, the determinant condition for the creation of the Party. The question is even more pertinent and central since the active Marxist-Leninists in the C.S.L.O. who advocate its continuing existence (including those who advocated it up to September 4) support the view, whereby Marxist-Leninists don’t have to worry about the raising of the level of workers’ consciousness, during the course of their activities.
Considering that the C.S.L.O. has been until now led by Marxist-Leninists who, in words at any rate, recognize that the present central tasks of communists is to win over advanced workers to communism, and we see these same Marxist-Leninists flying around trying to keep alive such an organization or at least such a form of activity, which in their opinion, should not try to raise the level of the workers consciousness; the questions which come to mind are not only “burning” ones, but also singularly troubling ones. For the winning over to communism of the advanced workers and of other progressive elements of the masses, necessarily proceeds through the raising of their level of political consciousness.
The political line that supports the position of the supporters of the C.S.L.O. as a supposedly “mass” organization, exclusively destined to the popular support of workers struggles, is a right opportunist line which is characterized by its dogmatism, on the one hand, and by its workerism, its spontaneism, and finally its economism, on the other hand. In this case, the dogmatism consists in applying mechanically the principles of Marxism-Leninism, specifically the one that affirms the leading role of the working-class in the struggle for socialism, by emptying them of all the dialectics which are their principal characteristic. As for the workerism and the spontaneism, they lead to the adulation of workers and to the assumption that all workers struggles are revolutionary. More exactly, they say that “all workers struggles are ’anti-capitalist’”.
Either we understand “anti-capitalist” in its strictly economic sense, of all that opposes the realization of profits by capitalists in a purely immediate way, thus revealing an economist conception of workers struggles; or else “anti-capitalist” is equivalent to “revolutionary,” revealing the incorrect assumption that all workers struggles are revolutionary, that they constitute attacks aimed at the bourgeoisie power.
Thus we must not hesitate to affirm that the stand taken by the supporters of the C.S.L.O. is economist, in the way that it reduces class struggle to workers’ struggle for immediate advantages, which except for rare cases, are only economically advantageous. The line of the supporters of the C.S.L.O., similar to that of the supporters of “intermediate organizations” (also called “mass political organizations”) finally boils down to the most complete reformism. It leads to anti-partyism, it leads to the liquidation of the struggle for the Party, (which consists in the development of communist agitation, propaganda and organization among the workers).
But who are these supporters of the C.S.L.O. whose line EN LUTTE! is supposed to have criticized? Is there at least one Marxist-Leninist group in Quebec which advocates maintaining the C.S.L.O.? Here are some questions that readers might ask themselves, principally after the publication, recently, of a document titled Contribution du Comite de Coordination pour le Congres du C.S.L.O. (A Contribution from the Coordinating Committee for the Congress of the C.S.L.O.) and dated September 4, 1975. Indeed, this document which presents itself as a kind of summary review of the C.S.L.O. (which reads as follows on page 1): “Let’s examine a little where we’re at, let’s try to analyze the true nature of the problems and let’s see the proposals that can be derived from such an analyses”, ends by a first proposal, stunning at the least, formulated as follows: “that the C.S.L.O. be dissolved” (page 7 of the document). The least that can be said, is, if this review is “summary” (the C.C. of the C.S.L.O. says that it remains to be done) its conclusions are radical and give all the appearance of a vigorous self-criticism on the part of these who, only a few days ago, maintained that the C.S.L.O. should continue to exist, under the form, according to some, of a “front for support” for workers struggles.
But nothing of the kind. The “summary review” with which we are faced has nothing to do with the self-criticism of yesterday’s supporters of the C.S.L.O.; it also has nothing to do with true criticism of the incorrect line which presently exists amid the Quebec Marxist-Leninist movement, the incorrect line which explains not only the errors of the C.S.L.O., taken one by one, but also the incorrect line character of the decision taken in December 1973 in transforming the C.S.L.O. into a permanent, supposedly mass organization for the support for workers’ struggles following what was agreed to be called a “minimal line”, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and opposed to national oppression.
This is why the recent “turn about” of the C.C. of the C.S.L.O. changes nothing. For what is in question is not mainly the maintaining or the dissolution of the C.S.L.O., nor the creation or not of a permanent or occasional “front of support”, but the line following which communists must conceive and achieve the support of workers struggles in the concrete conditions of our country where the merger of Marxism-Leninism with the workers’ movement has hardly begun. For, at the present stage, in effect the support of workers struggles cannot be considered in any other manner than as one of the forms of intervention aiming to insure the development of the link of the Marxist-Leninist movement with the workers movement.
In facing the criticisms that we formulated about the line and activities of the C.S.L.O. a few months ago, some groups, which, accuse us of making too “polemical” interventions, have called us “liquidators of the mass movement”. The true, the only liquidators in the Marxist-Leninist movement in Quebec at this time are those who, in practice, oppose the development of the struggle for the Party by putting forth reformist practices such as the creation, by communists themselves, of several “intermediate organizations” according to a “minimal” line based on the argument that this is the correct method to reach Canadian workers who are less advanced than the Russian workers of 1880-1890. These Marxist-Leninist are liquidators to the extent that they sabotage the struggle for the Party on behalf of organizations with barely social-democratic programs.
For EN LUTTE!, the criticism of the opportunist line manifesting itself within the C.S.L.O., is all the more important as our group was one of the founders of the C.S.L.O. (in September, 1973) and one of the supporters of its transformation into a permanent organization a few months later. We are fully aware of haŽving upheld incorrect positions last year, not only with regards to the C.S.L.O., but also by bringing forth ambiguous concepts such as “mass organizations” as if the Party would not be the only vanguard organization; such as the “mass work” and “vanguard work”. The ambiguity of our stands of those days existed only to hide our weak understanding of the teachings of Leninism and of Mao-Tse-Tung thought on the one hand, and the economism characterizing our interventions in workers and people’s struggles.
These interventions, at least those concerning agitation, were precisely channeled mainly through our participation in the activities of the C.S.L.O., of which we remained an active group member until last spring.
In short, the error of EN LUTTE! was to advocate that Marxists-Leninists raise their propaganda to the level of Marxism-Leninism and lower their agitation at the level of reformism and social-democracy. In practice, our propaganda has also revealed the existence within our own group of an opportunist and economist trend. Only since last winter have we begun to identify this deviation and to correct it.
For that matter, the pamphlet of the C.M.O., De Quelques Questions Brulantes sur la Ligne Tactique, published last June, is liable to be very useful to Quebecois Marxist-Leninists to the extent that it is the clearest synthesis of the various forms taken up by the opportunist trend within the Marxist-Leninist movement in the last year. Moreover, it develops the economist and opportunist deviations to a level never reached before, with the exception of the Rassemblement des Comites de Travailleurs (R.C.T.) and its semi-official press organ, the Bulletin Populaire, and the group of the Librairie Progressiste publishing the journal Mobilisation which carries an identical line, as to the substance, with that of the R.C.T. Later, we will therefore consider some of the major aspects of the line upheld by the C.M.O. in its pamphlet.
In every capitalist country, the road to socialism is unique, it is the proletarian revolution. II consists of three great strategic tasks: first, to achieve the merger of Marxism-Leninism and of the workers’ movement, in other words, to build the Party which gathers together the communist vanguard of the proletariat; second, to unify the broad masses under the leadership of the Party of the proletariat in the struggle for socialism which can take the form of a united front; and lastly, third, to overthrow the power of the bourgeois State and to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, a task for which the arming of revolutionary forces is an essential condition.
It is evident that the character of these three strategical tasks vary according to the particular country, and that they do not happen all at the same time; but they all exist, in essence, everywhere where the proletariat has led the socialist revolution, in Russia, China, Viet-Nam, ...etc.
From a strategical point of view, the Canadian revolution also depends upon the achievement of these three tasks: to build the Party of the proletariat, to unite the broad masses under its leadership and to arm the people. This is how the bourgeoisie power will be torn down and the dictatorship of the proletariat established. Then the building of socialism in our country will be undertaken.
At the present stage in Canada, when the Marxist-Leninist movement is young and barely linked to the workers’ movement, on the one hand, and when, on the other hand, the workers’ and people’s militancy is increasing, due mainly to the worsening of the imperialist crisis, the central task of communists (Marxist-Leninist) is to achieve the merger of Marxism-Leninism and the workers’ movement or, in other words, to wage the struggle to build a communist vanguard in the working class and to build the revolutionary Party of the proletariat.
The merger of Marxism-Leninism and the workers movement depends essentially on the winning over to communism, to Marxism-Leninism, the advanced elements of the proletariat. It is indeed only when the most conscious workers, the most militant, the best working leaders, not only acknowledge the value of Marxism-Leninism as the theory of the struggle of the proletariat, but also assimilate it, become its spokesmen, and its upholders among the working masses themselves, it is only then that the merger of Marxism-Leninism and the workers movement is actually irreversibly started. Only then can the ideological domination of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat and the working masses, be attacked without respite and can be more and more often checked (an ideological domination which takes the form of the bribing of the working-class aristocracy, the reformist, even reactionary, character of the leadership of the unions and other mass organizations, and the existence of reformist political parties profiting only the bourgeoisie, but which attract to its ranks progressive and advanced workers).
But the proletarian ideology will triumph bourgeois ideology mainly amongst the advanced strata of the proletariat, but also of among other progressive elements of the broad masses, only if Marxism-Leninism is spread on the largest scale possible. It is only through agitation and propaganda that communists will succeed in this, win over to proletarian ideology, to Marxism-Leninism, the advanced elements of the masses, and pull them away from the domination of bourgeois ideology. This is an important step forward on the road to the total liberation of the masses from the claws of capitalist exploitation and from the bourgeois dictatorship. And presently all efforts of Marxist-Leninists must be oriented toward the achievement of this step forward.
[1] Abbreviations and Groups:
A.N.E.Q. – Association Nationale des Etudiants du Quebec – National Association of Quebec Students
C.A.P.s – Comites d’Action Politique – Political Action Committees
C.M.O. – Cellule Militante Ouvriere – Militant Workers’ Cell
C.O.R. – Cellule Ouvriere Revolutionnaire – Revolutionary Workers’ Cell
C.S.L.O. – Comite de Solidarite avec les Luttes Ouvrieres – Committee of Solidarity with Workers’ Struggles
C.C. – Comite de Coordination (du C.S.L.O.) – Coordination Committee (of the C.S.L.O.)
C.S. – Comite de Solidarite – Solidarity Committee
G.R.I.P. – Groupe d’Intervention Politique – Political Intervention Group
M.R.E.Q. – Mouvement Revolutionnaire des Etudiants du Quebec – Revolutionary Movement of Quebec Students
R.C.T. – Rassemblement des Comites de Travailleurs – Workers’ Committees Movement
MOBILISATION: review published on a monthly basis by the Librairie Progressiste.
[2] ETOILE ROUGE/RED STAR: newspaper published by the C.O.R.; only 1 issue published – Summer 1975.
[3] A First Step Towards the Unification of Marxist-Leninists; published: Summer, 1975.
[4] Concerning Several Burning Issues cm the Tactical Line; pamphlet published by the C.M.O., June, 1975.