First Published: Canadian Revolution No. 5, April-May 1976
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
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This is the final installment of a three-part article translated from Mobilisation. The first installment, dealing with the history of the Communist Party from 1921 until the formation of the anti-fascist United Front, was published in Canadian Revolution No. 3, and the second installment, the United Front period until the Cold War, was published in CR No. 4. Both issues are available from CR for $1.50 each.
Even though the leadership of the party was solidly held by a revisionist clique, numerous revolutionaries amongst the rank-and-file retained the Party as a reference point during the early sixties. In Quebec, despite the scarcity of militants since the departure of Gagnon and his followers, and despite the formation of new revolutionary groups Mouvement de liberation populaire, MLP – People’s Liberation Movement – in 1965; Comite pour l’independence et le socialism, CIS – Committee for Independence and Socialism – and the Front de liberation populaire, FLP – People’s Liberation Front–in 1967-68), a few communists remained active. They were not involved in the major mass struggles of the fifties and sixties (Arvida, Louiseville, Murdochville, Ayers) but participated in union locals or at the regional level (in particular the Montreal Labour Council of the QFL).
It was in British Columbia, one of the CP’s strongholds for several decades, that there developed a real internal opposition. The rank-and-file of the party struggled against the reformist programme presented by the party leadership from the beginning of the sixties onward, refusing to accept the replacement of the struggle for socialism with phraseology about “the struggle for peace”. At the party congress in 1962 these militants (for the most part active amongst dock-worker and maritime construction unions) came out in open opposition to the party’s line. The party leadership succeeded in short-circuiting open debate around its line.
In 1964, this same group of militants, led by Jack Scott, a veteran communist, founded a China Friendship Association, having understood the importance of popularizing the lessons of the Chinese revolution and of the building of socialism in China. The success of this work with progressive people in B.C. led the party leadership to expel Scott and more than 70 of the most experienced and active militants of the working class in the Vancouver region. These militants, who were the backbone of the party in B.C., and who had built it through their struggle were thus expelled without there being any discussion within the party around the political lines of the leadership and of the dissidents.
Outside the party, they continued the struggle. At the end of 1964, they founded one of the first Marxist-Leninist organizations in Canada, the Progressive Workers’ Movement. It became a centre for the propagation of Marxism-Leninism in Canada and of the struggle against revisionism. Internal struggle led to its dissolution in 1970, but not before a considerable number of militants had been educated in this first school and who today continue the struggle to rebuild the revolutionary movement in B.C. and across Canada.
The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia led another group of party militants to leave the party, and again this did not provoke new debate within its ranks. By this time the Canadian Communist Party could boast no more than a few hundred members, many of whom were over 60.
The party’s reformist strategy has not appreciably changed since its decay during the fifties. Party leadership has never tired of repeating the worn-out refrain about “electing progressive people to Parliament in order to transform it into an instrument of people’s struggle against the monopolies”. (22nd Congress of the CPC, May 18, 1974).[47]
Nonetheless, there has been a certain increase in the old Communist Party’s activities. Firstly, its popularity has grown, particularly amongst a certain fraction of union officials already influenced by the social-democratic jargon thrown around lately by the unions. Thus, it would seem that party ranks have doubled within two years (to between four and five hundred members) of which a large part is made up of trade-union militants at various levels within the union hierarchy (once again UE, printing unions in Montreal, fishermen in Ontario and in the Maritimes).[48] This development is part and parcel of the radicalization of the unions and of union militants, faced with the impasse of the trade union struggles of the past few years.
Even if the majority of trade-unionists still prefer working ̴within” the PQ (of the NDP), an important fraction has opted for verbally radical positions (for a workers’ party, for moderate socialism) combined with persistence in their traditionally bureaucratic ways (which serve to prevent the autonomy and the initiative of the working class). The Communist Party’s project is thus to be understood in this context. It is nothing new for the CPC to put forward the idea of a large, open workers’ party, which would be a sort of united front between trade union and progressive forces (modelled on the coalitions of the socialists and communist parties in France, Finland, Portugal, etc.). The logic behind this thinking, though not in itself false, serves to hide the reformist and revisionist nature of the CPC. First of all a united front is based upon a leading force.
This leading force can only be an authentic communist party, whose revolutionary strategic and tactical leadership leads the masses to socialism and national liberation. As we have seen, the CPC has long since ceased being this instrument capable of providing revolutionary leadership to the struggle of the masses. Even at the local level within the trade unions the militants of the CPC have become the most trustworthy backers of the union bureaucracy. They are even less able to present to the people as a whole a global, revolutionary perspective. Without a revolutionary leading force within a united front it can only sink into reformism. And reformism, as history has amply demonstrated, leads straight to defeat.
What’s more, the proposal for a “Workers’ Mass Federated Party” ignores one further aspect. With whom does one make this united front? The revisionists want to unite with the trade-union bureaucracies, the NDP, the cooperative movement, etc. Though these sectors were once active and dynamic elements amongst the masses, today they are merely instruments for collaboration and integration with capitalism. When we have built a genuine communist party and if the question of a large democratic united front is posed, it will be formed with all the militant and progressive elements of the people, which categorically excludes the current top dogs within the trade union bureaucracies.[49] We need not even mention the NDP and cohorts.
For the Communist Party any other revolutionary alternative is the work of “separatist and Maoist dreamers”. The revisionist position thus bypasses the strategic objective of the current period, the building of a genuine communist party, and what’s more calls for the alliance of all the reformist forces within the CPC’s “Workers’ Mass Federated Party”!
The question of the Canadian Communist Party is not an immediate, day-to-day problem for the vast majority of the militant and progressive sections of the people. In spite of a certain comeback the CPC does not constitute an important voice amongst the masses, especially the most advanced strata. In Montreal, revolutionaries have had no direct confrontations with the CPC (though they were present indirectly in the Chile support campaign)[50]. Their presence within the trade union locals and mass organizations is nil, and the same goes for the various community groups and associations (though they have had limited success in obtaining wide publicity through the use of the pseudo-organization “League of Women”).
As for the youth and student movements their only foothold over the last few years has been the architecture and engineering students’ association at the University of Montreal which is far from being progressive. Briefly, the question of the CPC as such is not an immediate one for the revolutionary movement. However, the questions of reformism and revisionism, of right and “left” opportunism, of class compromise and sacrificing the interests of the masses and of the revolution, are on the agenda today.[51] And they will remain there as long as there are classes and class struggle. As we have tried to demonstrate earlier, reformism is bourgeois ideology which had infiltrated the workers’ movement and which takes on many forms: social democracy, revisionism, ultra-“leftism”. We shall try to shed further light on these questions by re-examining the history of the Canadian Communist Party, the lessons to be learned and the errors to be avoided.
On our continent both mass struggle and the development of revolutionary leadership take place under very difficult conditions. The history of the Communist Party provides an eloquent example. The American bourgeoisie (and its Canadian and Quebec allies) possesses considerable economic, political, ideological, and military strength. Moreover, the pillage of the Third World has permitted the maintenance of the relative economic comfort of a large fraction of the people, the bourgeois sociologists’ “middle class”, or more precisely the petit-bourgeoisie and the labour aristocracy. These strata have experienced heavy ideological conditioning by the bourgeoisie, greatly hindering the acceptance of any idea of social change.
The combination of objective, material factors and subjective, ideological factors which produced this situation can be explained by the emergence of American domination on a worldwide scale and the subsequent relative stability on the home continent. But now that American imperialism has been shaken, that its economy is in recession (to use a euphemism) the situation has begun to change; the masses have begun to move, to organize their resistance against the deterioration of their working and living conditions. Current objective conditions thus bear a certain resemblance to the situation which existed during the rise of the Communist Party.
An important lesson to be drawn in this context is not to underestimate the strength of the enemy? The “triumphalist” attitudes which were present within the CPC following its penetration of the masses, struck a brick wall once the hard realities of American capitalism became clear. And imperialism and capitalism still retain much of their strength, albeit waning and open to attack. It is important to realize that our struggle shall be long and hard, fraught with numerous setbacks, and that despite our recent advances, particularly in sinking roots into the masses, the road to victory is long. We must understand as well the international character of our struggle, which is very concrete and real: our victories are dependent on the victories of the peoples of the world, and vice versa. Each and every struggle against imperialism throughout the world is one part of the same struggle.
During its heyday the party was a party linked with the masses; its thousands of militants took an active part in the economic and trade union struggles of the day. Despite certain serious mistakes (especially their subordination to American unions) the Communists showed themselves to be the best fighters, and the best organizers of the struggles of the masses. They succeeded in criticizing their over-emphasis on propaganda and agitation during the second period (the thirties) and realized the importance of organization. The Communists could no longer limit themselves to proclaiming socialism as the only answer. They had to demonstrate concretely on a day-to-day basis that they were the most dedicated and the most able to organize all types of struggles. On account of their emphasis on the construction of mass organizations, such as the Workers’ Unity League, they earned the right to be at the forefront of the mass struggles: the strikes and occupations, the struggles of the unemployed against evictions, marches and demonstrations, etc. In mass industry it was the Communists who laid the groundwork for the building of the large industrial unions. With courage and determination they set out and unionized thousands of workers at GM and at Firestone, at Dominion Textile and in the CPR. Whereas it was the Communists who built the large unions of today, our current bureaucrats showed up when the bulk of the work had been done and all that remained was to gain control of the key posts and start collecting the members’ dues.
The mass movement inevitably develops spontaneously during the struggle. It comes in waves as the objective and subjective conditions ripen amongst the masses. Its strength, however, can be greatly increased by clear and correct leadership. When well-led the mass movement achieves its economic ends, and more importantly, the masses gain confidence in themselves, in their independence from the bosses. They become conscious of their strength and solidarity, and may become open to the idea of profound changes, of revolutionary changes. It is here that the communist party plays its role, for it is not subject to the vicissitudes of the mass movement, it does not emerge spontaneously during the struggle. On the contrary, the communist party is the product of a scientific synthesis, of a global and revolutionary analysis of society. It emerges as the result of the comprehension of all the tasks which are necessary to bring about a revolutionary transformation of society.
However, there exist certain obvious links between the mass movement and the communist party. It is usually the most advanced elements who emerge during the struggle who realize the necessity to continue the struggle on a higher level. These elements, when guided politically and educated by Marxist- Leninist theory, constitute the main basis on which is created the party, the revolutionary and scientific synthesis of the class struggle.
By the same token it is only natural that the party’s presence should be greater when the level of mass struggle is higher and that it should retreat during periods of temporary calm.
The right deviation, the economist and spontaneist deviation, the error which was to prevent the CPC from becoming a genuine revolutionary party, was to identify the development of the party with the development of the mass movement. This deviation led to several major errors: the dissolution of the factory cells by the communists, the low theoretical level within the party and the lack of seriousness with which this problem was treated, and finally, the leadership’s negligence of developing a true revolutionary strategy for the Canadian revolution and the absence of a correct position on the national question in Quebec.
The Communist Party had succeeded in linking itself to the mass struggles, to the construction of the industrial unions, etc. Its mechanical application of the directives of the international communist movement during the thirties and during the war. against fascism was due to its inability to develop its own strategy which would have been able to encompass all the factors which make up Canadian society. Thus, the leadership had no foresight, the rank-and-file no grounding in theory, which rendered them incapable of criticizing the errors of the leadership. A vicious circle developed which could only lead to the party’s disintegration.
Certain interpretations of the history of the CPC identify its degeneration with the appearance of the revisionist leadership in the Soviet Union. This position leads to conceiving the development of revisionism, of reformism, as ’spontaneous generation’. Other interpretations see the origins of the CPC’s errors emerging at the end of the Second World War, when the Party adopted the “Browderist” positions of the coming end to the class struggle and the beginning of an era of peaceful competition between capitalism and socialism. Once again this interpretation does not get at the origins and the profound causes of the erroneous analyses put forward by the party at the end of the forties.[52]
The real source of the Party’s incorrect line during the war and in the following period was an economist and spontaneist deviation which characterized it from the very time it began to gain in strength. This deviation prevented the emergence of a genuine communist party whose leadership would have been capable of developing a correct strategic analysis of the situation and of the tasks of the revolutionary movement. Whereas in other countries (in particular in Western Europe) similar economist errors led to the transformation of the Communist Parties into reformist pressure groups, here, the economist errors, in the context of repression and ideological integration, destroyed the party. Repression, in this context, constituted the secondary (although important) factor which led to the decline and disappearance, to all intents and purposes, of the party. Had a revolutionary line been maintained, had the militants who entered the party in large numbers been transformed into true political cadres, had the party done genuine agitation and propaganda along with building the union movement, there is no doubt that the party would have maintained strong roots in the masses. But as it was, the masses as well as the majority of Party members did not have the political capacity to resist the onslaught of the repression.
But unless we tie in these lessons with the current situation in the revolutionary movement we would be restraining ourselves to the domain of speculation.
Once again the masses are in movement. After 25 years of relative calm, the climate has become one of struggle. It is obvious that revolutionaries must participate in this movement, penetrate it to the maximum of their abilities, become genuine cadres within the mass struggle, and give leadership to the day-to-day struggle. In fact this is what the majority of militants have done, devoting the greatest part of their energy to this task. This is a lesson we have learned from the history of the international communist movement, and from the history of the Canadian Communist Party.
But while applying this lesson, we must also avoid the errors which were made in the past. Thus, immersed in the mass struggle, confronted with the immediate problem of organizing the masses in a defensive and economic battle, numerous militants have a tendency to “tail behind the mass movement”, to not concretize in practice the strategic objective of the current period: the creation of a new communist party. This task is not something abstract. It implies the creation, by Marxist-Leninist groups, of factory cells in their workplaces into which are integrated the most advanced elements who have emerged during the mass struggle. The Marxist-Leninist groups must create the conditions for the building of the revolutionary party, they must educate communist cadre and work towards the unification of all Marxist-Leninists by practising criticism and self-criticism.
The creation of the new communist party will not take place tomorrow morning. However, it is imperative that our work should immediately be directed towards this objective, and not as some would have it,[53] during a first stage be directed towards mass work in economic and trade union struggles, only at some later stage (which will appear when and where nobody knows), to be oriented towards the creation of the party. To do this would be to repeat the same economist errors of the CPC, only in a different form. It would mean sending militants to the heart of the mass struggle, but without attempting to build the leading organ of that struggle, without developing a global revolutionary strategy.
Thus, we must learn from those who have gone before us. If we sink deep roots into the masses, if we use Marxist-Leninist theory as the basis of our work and are organized in consequence, if we have the desire and the will to unite, we shall succeed in following a correct road to the revolution.
[47] During the last Federal elections, the CPC put forward a slate of 70 candidates, to the “C”PC(ML’s hundred. In addition to receiving an insignificant number of votes the CPC once again demonstrated its revisionist and reformist nature.
[48] According to a CCP report, the average age of the delegates to the Party’s last congress was 45, which would lead one to believe that the younger generation within the party is not very strong.
[49] Though this front would include a fair number of militants and officers at the local level.
[50] This came about as a result of the preference expressed by the majority of the groups within the Quebec-Chile Committee to send the funds to the MIR, which they evaluated as the group most able to use the money.
[51] See Reformism, theoretical and historical perspectives, in Mobilisation, Vol.4, No. 1.
[52] It is true, however, that it was during this period that revisionism and reformism became stronger, and especially more evident, within the party.
[53] This was the political conception of the now-defunct Regroupement des Comites des Travailleurs (RCT, Caucus of Workers’ Committees).