The primary political task is to increase the scope, intensity and numbers of people in mass struggles, struggles which objectively help to undermine the barriers that currently divide the working class, barriers such as sex, race, union bureaucracy. We are guided in this work by class struggle, anti-imperialist politics and these guidelines will help us expose the practice of left and right opportunist groups, groups such as the NDP, CP and Trotskyists”.
The development of higher levels of unity between movements primarily depends on the growth of those movements themselves. (X/Y: “Some brief, provocative notes”)
While X/Y speak of “unity”, they explain neither the form nor the content of the united front. They do not argue that the united front is part of the struggle for socialism, or that it is led by the proletariat and its party.
The WESTERN VOICE has supported unity between workers and native people, particularly in the Northwest. The halting steps towards unity, we argue, are largely based on mutual recognition of exploitation by multinational corporations and business-oriented governments.
What do we propose as a strategy for this potential alliance? Mel Watkins, of Waffle fame, is granted a page (Vol. 4, no. 11) in which to argue in favour of such reforms as government intervention, and an alliance based on recognition of aboriginal title and the fight for workers’ control and “beyond the workplace, for local and community control”. We know all too well that so-called “worker’s control” means tricking workers into producing more goods in less time – until the boss decides to lay the workers off. Even Watkins begins to recognise his own reformism by acknowledging that governments “are part of the problem”. As for the “alliance”, on the very opposite page we acknowledge that it “is still only formal”, that natives and workers could be easily “pitted against each other”.
What do we propose? That trade union leaders “engage their fellow workers in struggle and education’’. Since when does this happen? Later on in the same article we criticize ’northwest exceptionalism’, but it seems that in arguing for “struggle and education” by trade union leaders we fall victim to the same error. Such activity can only be expected to occur if it grows out of a political framework and leadership that has vitality and meaning for workers. And as we acknowledge in the same article, the only framework that has a presence among workers in the north is the bankrupt reformism of the NDP – disillusionment with this party is in itself not going to motivate its past supporters to adopt energetic new strategies. We give the NDP a couple more kicks in this article – judging from the atmosphere of the conference they are hardly necessary. But we do not provide a framework which might give some cohesion and goals to a strategy of “struggle and education”.
In the same article we point out certain criticisms of the workers’ control strategy – correctly. But here we are effectively nullifying the material to which we have granted a full page of the same sheet. The reader is, on the one hand, told by Mel Watkins that the fight for “workers control” and similar illusions is the correct strategy; and by us on the other that it won’t work under capitalism. It may be all very interesting to intellectuals who like to find out what different people are thinking, but such a fascinating hodgepodge is no substitute for a clear political framework. The two lines presented in the supplement nullify each other – and nothing remains.
In fact, a united front in the Northwest, as elsewhere, can only wage an effective struggle against capitalism and imperialism if it is led by a workers’ vanguard which studies Marxism-Leninism, applies the revolutionary theory to the concrete conditions of the region in the Canadian context, and builds an organisation which educates a growing vanguard in these ideas. Such an organisation alone will have the political and theoretical tools to build an effective united front.
The X/Z “sketch”[1] defined the staff as a “united front”, defining united front as follows:
... the basis of unity of the collective is defined in terms of a minimum programme that seeks to unite all genuinely progressive people for a strategic objective that they share even though they may have important ideological or political differences about other objectives.
The role of communists in a united front was described with reference to Vietnam:
Communists [in Vietnam] gave important, and over time, more and more decisive leadership to the united front but the majority of active fighters were undecided or even actually against communism. The minority of communists were not in a position to dictate what people should do or think politically and they didn’t try to persuade people into believing that they could opt for or against socialism once independence was won while secretly planning a military coup. They tried to persuade as many people as possible but their first commitment was to winning the goals of the united front because they were confident that through the experience of fighting to drive out the imperialists or by the new visible possibilities created by achieving independence more people would be persuaded to join a new united with a new strategic objective – socialism.
A draft program is included in the X/Z text, and a section is devoted to the idea that “we are for socialism”. Such a slogan is not contained in our current basis of unity; more to the point perhaps, X/Z stated that “By saying we are for socialism we are not specifying a single ’correct’ method for getting there.” And the draft program resembles more a plan for “New Democracy” than a plan for socialism. This proposal was later dropped in any case.
The most widely held assumptions on the WESTERN VOICE about the united front strategy derive from the definitions above. The Vietnamese themselves describe the functioning of the united front quite differently. Le Duan, First Secretary of the Vietnam Workers’ Party, presents the lessons of his country’s struggles in The Vietnamese Revolution: Fundamental Problems, Essential Tasks (Hanoi: 1970).
Le Duan does not speak of “communists” giving “leadership” and trying to “persuade as many people as possible”, but of the fundamental importance of the party in propagating Marxism-Leninism in Vietnam:
To the Vietnamese people, Marxism-Leninism was like food and drink for a hungry and thirsty traveler [Ho Chi Minh]. It powerfully drew the Vietnamese patriots to the road of proletarian revolution and stirred up a vigorous national and democratic wave throughout the country, in which the working class became an independent political force...
[The founding of our party on February 3, 1930] ... marked a fundamental turning point in the history of the Vietnamese revolution. It meant the propagation of Marxism-Leninism to a colonial and semi-feudal country, the first necessary preparatory step leading to the most glorious insurrectionary period and the greatest leap forward in the evolution of the Vietnamese nation. (pp. 12-13)
What is not specified in either X/Y or X/Z is that, while taking leadership in the united front, the party at all times strives to bring Marxism-Leninism to the working class and its allies. “Working people” and “working class” (terms used by X/Y), in modern day Canada are in themselves unscientific terms, failing to distinguish between the proletariat (the leading revolutionary group, working at the heart of production) and the large, little understood “service sector”. Needless to say, in the absence of a party, the task of united either sector of the working class with Marxism-Leninism is quite difficult.
The first job of the party is to define the primary allies of the proletariat. In Vietnam, the worker -peasant alliance was crucial to the revolutionary struggle from the very beginning. But proletarian leadership is the fundamental principle:
The peasantry is highly revolutionary but cannot lead the revolution, for it does not represent any distinctive mode of production and has neither an independent political position nor an ideology of its own. In the national democratic revolution in our country, it can only go with and be guided by the working class. It cannot even carry out the agrarian revolution by itself, (p. 32)
Within the united front many different class interests must be clearly analysed and consciously recognized for effective unity to be reached:
The front is a unity of opposites which included various classes in league with each other on the basis of a definite common programme of struggle. That is why one cannot conceive of a classless front. A principled line requires that one should view and solve all problems related to the Front policy from a class stand. There are classes with essentially similar interests; there also exist classes whose interests are linked together only to a certain extent. Each class, for the sake of its own interests and of the common interest, joins forces with other classes within the Front. Moreover, the common interest itself is viewed by each class from its own angle. For the proletariat, on account of its historical position, its class interests and the common national interest are completely at one. But for the other classes, their respective interests and the common national interest converge in some respects, but diverge in others. For this reason, while maintaining unity and striving to strengthen it, there must necessarily be a struggle between the viewpoints of the various members of the Front, who represent different classes. One-sided unity, unaccompanied by struggle, in practice leads to the disruption of unity and the liquidation of the Front. If one knows how to conduct a principled struggle, i.e. one that is based on the common political programme and aimed at implementing it, far from breaking up unity and weakening the Front, one will have done the only thing that could strengthen unity and consolidate the Front. [pp. 34-35].
Mao Tse-tung stated concisely his conclusions on leadership and the role of class analysis in Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War:
Only the proletariat and the Communist Party can lead the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie, can overcome the narrow-mindedness of the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie, the destructiveness of the unemployed masses and also (provided the Communist Party does not err in its policy) the vacillation and lack of thoroughness of the bourgeoisie – and can lead the revolution and the war on to the road to victory. (Selected Works, Vol. 1, p. 192).
According to Le Duan, the Party takes firm leadership of the Front:
The interest of the revolution and that of the nation require that one should constantly enhance and consolidate the leading role of the Party within the Front, firmly maintain the Party’s independent line and organization, and oppose all tendencies to downgrade the Party’s role and dissolve in the Front. (ibid. p. 33)
This view of the role of the party in the United Front is consistent with the position put forward by Stalin and Dimitrov. It is very different from X/Z who seem to suggest that the Vietnamese party, while taking leadership, meekly “tried to convince as many people as possible” rather than decisively putting forward a proletarian line.
Nowhere in our extensive coverage of the Vietnamese struggle do we equal Le Duan’s precision on the role of Marxism-Leninism, the party, and the nature of the united front. We instead follow the classic pattern of “united front” inherited from the New Left era. Progressive people of the imperialist world (whoever they may be) are urged to unite with the peoples of the Third World and the so-called internal colonies. Their struggles are seen as objectively anti-imperialist, and we moralistically support them without explaining the real ways in which the Canadian proletariat can apply the lessons of these struggles, or why it is in their own class interests to support these struggles.
The WESTERN VOICE is not, and cannot be, as X/Z suggest, a united front in itself. It is a newspaper, produced by a political collective. By necessity the people who produce it have basic journalistic skills, acquired through training or self-education. By and large its membership at this stage is of petit-bourgeois origin or education. It has a definite – Economist – political line. Politically, it might be defined as a “tendency”, certainly not as a united front.
As Le Duan suggests, the United Front is conditional and changing. Only the proletariat’s class interests are one with the common national interest. Other classes and groups may come and go as a result of changes in external conditions and struggles within the Front, (as often happened in the Chinese Revolution) but the leadership of the party remains constant. The February revolution against the Tsarist government of Russia in 1917 was composed of a wide range of groups including Mensheviks and bourgeois democrats. It was not a long term united front in any sense, as was made evident by the Bolshevik revolution only a few months later.
But in the WESTERN VOICE we try against all odds to produce a newspaper which pretends to be the organ of a united front – despite the fact that no such front exists, and no proletarian group has set for itself the task of leading in its creation. Not only are we putting the cart before the horse, but the entire contraption is a figment of our imagination!
A newspaper could, on the other hand, be the organ of a united front of classes. Such an organ will no doubt play an important role some time in the future. But at this time, such a newspaper is impossible, as the preconditions do not exist. The immediate precondition is the existence of a united front under proletarian leadership. For such a front to come into existence, the proletariat itself must take up the task of revolution.
Certain strata, largely defined as the lower strata of the petit bourgeoisie, could be seen as immediate, and in certain cases perhaps permanent, allies of the proletariat. (These might include junior civil servants, teachers, small farmers and shopkeepers, many students). Native people and national minorities will play a prominent role. But in order to properly understand the relationships between these groups, and the nature of their participation in the revolutionary struggle, class analysis must be carried out. Such analysis is all the more difficult and necessary for the upper strata of Canadian society.
Once this has been accomplished, and the allies of the proletariat are understood, the content of a political program will begin to emerge.
Mechanisms for the working out of such a program were proposed in the X/Z papers, but this proposal was abandoned. Given that no scientific principles were set out for this work, there were no criteria for defining the components of such a program. The failure to define clearly the united front strategy was part and parcel of the lack of principles.
The results are only too obvious. Instead of a program for revolution, we have a list of isolated, almost arbitrary, points of agreement: support for Canadian unions, rank and file controlled struggles, native land claims, anti-racism etc. In practice that has usually meant decrying repressive wage settlements, criticizing business unionism, cheering militant struggles, and blaming the NDP for being incapable of transcending the limits of capitalism. On occasion, as with some articles on political economy, we have been able to show the relationship between imperialism and the exploitation of the working class, but we have been paralyzed in our abilities to show how workers can break the chain of oppression once and for all.
The WESTERN VOICE has done little if anything to “increase” mass struggle. It may have been of some minor use as agitational material in local situations. But nearly all the struggles we cover originate long before we hear about them, and they develop according to their own local internal dynamics, not through the leadership of communists consciously working to build the united front. This is no surprise, as it is incorrect at this stage to assume that the VOICE could or should take leadership in the mass movement. A newspaper alone cannot take leadership in the movement. This can only be done by an organisation which has organic day-to-day links with the working class and a correct political line.
If some unity is developing in the movements we see around us it is not because of the efforts of the WESTERN VOICE. In the current economic crisis, reformist mass organizations spontaneously gravitate towards unity in the normal fulfillment of their function of self-defense. However, failing a revolutionary strategy their members can only react in frustration to the limits of reformist solutions.
Only when Marxism-Leninism becomes an active instrument in leading the mass struggle will the advanced elements in the mass movements have the tools to build an effective united front.
A number of mechanisms were proposed in the first X/Z paper which might have led us to use the ideology of the proletariat as our guide. These included the formation of a study group based on Marxism-Leninism; an editorial committee functioning as a political committee (unclearly defined) and including different tendencies within the paper; allowing political debate in the pages of the newspaper; holding public educationals. Most of them were dropped, others just withered away.
[1] Another internal document written in spring 1973. In a modified form it was adopted as our basis of unity until X/Y was adopted over 1 year later.