First Published: Canadian Revolution No. 6, October 1976
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
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Dear Comrades:
First of all, I’d like to congratulate you on the excellent work you’re doing to bring about the unity of Canadian Marxist-Leninists by providing a forum in which the important issues in the M-L movement can be debated. Since CR started, we can speak of a Canadian M-L movement where before there were only isolated local groups, barely aware (if at all) even of each other’s existence. This isolation has ended and unity is being built.
The central task facing Canadian Marxist-Leninists is the creation of a genuine communist party. One of the steps toward this is the creation of an organization of struggle for the party.
Marxist-Leninists must learn from the past and present in order to build the future. CR’s articles from Mobilisation (Some Observations on the History of the Communist Party of Canada) have been valuable in this regard. However, as the stage of building an organisation of struggle for the party is still before us, I feel that it is also important to learn from the history of the first such organization to be formed since the CPC went revisionist: the Progressive Workers’ Movement. What were its strengths? Its weaknesses? Why was it dissolved? These questions must be answered or else the next attempt to build an organization of struggle for the party may suffer the same fate as the PWM. I suggest that Jack Scott and the Vancouver Study Group write an article for CR about the PWM. I think it would benefit the M-L movement greatly.
Yours in struggle,
PO Box 1142 Station A Vancouver
* * *
Comrades,
We are completely “in the dark” at the moment concerning developments at CR, and there are many questions unanswered:
How will CR relate to the present formations within the Marxist-Leninist movement?
Will CR promote the, 2-line struggle among Canadian Marxist-Lehinists? How?
What lessons can be drawn from CR’s experience to date?
What steps are being taken to avoid a repetition of the opportunist Bolshevik Tendency “personal property” type deviation?
Subscribers to CR are probably also reading The Forge and En Lutte, and we think CR should be soliciting papers and critiques concerning the main lines and developments within the movement. Contributions which have some thing to add to the struggle should be published by you to ensure the widest possible circulation.
We also consider that several of the articles published should not just have been published as they were published, without comment, but should have been accompanied by a brief critical comment by CR. (Examples: Article from Edmonton WUC in CR4, in which several references to the Progressive Workers’ Movement were made This should have been accompanied by a call for a thoroughgoing criticism or self-criticism of PWM experience. In CR3 and CR4 the Observations on the CP (from Mobilisation) warranted a far more critical introduction than the one written by Mobilisation. (“The error is not in Reading the day-to-day struggles of the masses. It is in doing nothing more than that.”)
A year ago the formation and publication of CR was a step forward, a positive contribution to the Canadian Marxist-Leninist movement. There has been a significant change in conditions since then, but CR is in danger of developing a tendency to stand still, in which case it could become a hinderance to progress,
Fraternal greetings,
Vancouver Socialist Group
* * *
The creation of the review Canadian Revolution in May, 1975, was a positive step in the development of the revolutionary movement in Canada. Its publication served to clearly affirm the existence of a communist movement throughout English Canada. It helped break with much of the isolation and localism which has so far characterized the Marxist-Leninist movement, particularly by spreading the lessons of the more developed movement within the oppressed Quebec nation throughout the country. Some articles in CR helped to publicize the viewpoints of different Marxist-Leninist groups. The journal also contributed to the struggle against some of the more blatant forms of economism.
From its creation, though, it was clear that CR could not continue to exist indefinitely because it carried with it inherent limitations. The very notion of an “independent journal of Marxism-Leninism” was a contradiction in terms. Produced by a coalition of different elements lacking unity or even positions on the major questions of political line under debate within the movement and not engaging in its own revolutionary practice in the proletariat, CR’s contributions could only be confined to a very specific period in the development of the Canadian communist movement.
That period is rapidly drawing to a close as the movement begins to break out of its backwardness. The past several months have seen a number of important changes and developments within the communist movement in our country.
In the fall of 1975, the Canadian Communist League (Marxist-Leninist) was created through the unity of three groups in Montreal. Since that time, the League has undertaken communist work among the working class and published its newspaper, The Forge. Produced every two weeks in English and French, The Forge is building up a distribution across the country. Recently, the Toronto Marxist-Leninist group, Workers’ Unity, rallied to the League. The League now has opened a district in Toronto, the largest urban center in English-Canada, and has begun communist agitation and propaganda among the working class there too.
In Struggle!, the other most significant Marxist-Leninist formation in the country, has also begun publishing its newspaper in English and French and distributing it across the country.
There have been other developments in the past year. The ideological struggle within the Marxist-Leninist movement has developed rapidly. Blows have been delivered against economism and right opportunism, though both remain very strong. A fair number of groups and collectives have clarified their positions and put forward their views publicly. Increasingly, too, these groups and collectives are addressing themselves to the key questions being raised by the lines and practice of the League and In Struggle!, for it is these two organizations which so far have principally developed and put forward their lines.
Because of these advances in the communist movement, the role that CR can play has undergone a change. It is less and less relevant to the development of the revolutionary movement. The CCL(ML) feels that the time has come to cease publication of the journal, and move forward. Let’s examine in a little more detail why this is the case.
CR cannot in fact take real leadership in the development of the struggle against opportunism and for unity within the movement. You can’t fight a wrong line unless you’re armed with a single, correct one. But by its very nature as an alliance of different political views, the journal cannot take a clear line and point the direction forward for the entire Marxist-Leninist movement. It thus cannot stand at the head of struggle and is increasingly obliged to tail behind the Marxist-Leninist movement. Worse still, without a correct line to guide it, CR finds itself publishing anti-Marxist positions which do anything but help move forward the struggle for the party (such as the anti-Leninist analysis of imperialism done by the Edmonton group, Workers’ Unity).
Though this weakness has always been present ever since CR was created – that it could only serve as a vehicle for debate and not really contribute to pushing that debate forward – the problem grows more serious with time. The developments in the communist movement mentioned above mean that there now exist forces which can provide the needed leadership and a clear orientation.
The one function CR could assume – one that has constituted the bulk of its work to date – is the reproduction of documents from different parts of the country; but even this is no longer necessary. The League and In Struggle! have their own means of agitation and propaganda and many smaller groups are taking the initiative to independently publish and distribute their material.
As time passes, CR thus becomes increasingly left behind by the developments within the communist movement.
Moreover, CR’s separation of theory from practice is another important reason for its liquidation. At the outset of the journal’s publication, CR said it would encourage articles summing up the experience of revolutionary work in the proletariat. But there has been none of this very vital work in the pages of CR–and not surprisingly. For while individuals within the CR collective may have some practical experience, CR as a collective is not actively engaged in the working class revolutionary struggle. Clearly, the journal addresses itself to intellectuals and not to the advanced sections of the proletariat. It thus does not actively help to fuse the science of Marxism-Leninism with the working class.
Do we really need this type of theoretical journal for intellectuals today? What we need is one which is directly linked with communists who are rallying the most advanced workers to communism. We need a theoretical review which answers the problems of the practical revolutionary struggle. And only a Marxist-Leninist organization, leading forward the struggle to build a new communist party, can publish such a theoretical journal. This has been the historical experience of party-building throughout the international communist movement.
Here’s where the entire question of CR’s “independence” comes up in all its contradictions. “Independent” from what? It’s a basic teaching of Marxism-Leninism that nothing is independent of classes. Every publication pushes a line which represents either the bourgeoisie or the proletariat. And if one calls oneself a Marxist-Leninist, one cannot remain “independent” of the different lines being put forward by existing organizations. One must choose the correct proletarian line. Two things happen with publications which proclaim to be “independent”. Either through petty-bourgeois fear and intellectualism they jealously guard their “independence” and become independent only of the proletariat. Or they choose to align themselves with a definite line, and dissolve or continue in a completely different form.
In fact, CR today is “independent” in name only. The overwhelming majority of its members have come to see the need to join a Marxist-Leninist organization to really push fofward the struggle for the party.
Certainly, it is not through the “common practice” of publishing an “independent” review together that In Struggle! and the League will resolve their differences and develop the struggle for unity!
Nor is it by reading articles from these two groups in CR that militants across the country can decide if they agree with one group or another.’ It is through the open struggle in their respective newspapers that these organizations can consistently and comprehensively explain their stands. Most importantly, it is by examining their practice and their revolutionary work, that militants can judge In Struggle! and the CCL(ML).
Given this situation, should CR continue to exist and maintain its “independence”, it would rapidly come to play a negative role and hold back the development of the Marxist-Leninist movement. To continue, CR will only be forced to justify the hesitation of militants to actively participate in the struggle to build the party. It would make excuses for those who wish to sit and debate indefinitely, rather than actively taking up communist agitation and propaganda among the working class.
But let’s break with this right opportunism. Let’s break with this clinging to the past, to manifestations of our backwardness, and move boldly forward! Only by building a country-wide Marxist-Leninist organization can communists in Canada actively take up the struggle for the party. We don’t need CR anymore and it will only hold us back. The dissolution of CR would be a positive thing. It would reflect the strength of the rising communist forces.
To liquidate CR would be a step forward; to fail to do so would be a serious error.
Communists don’t just end something by packing their bags and leaving. They sum up their work and their errors so all can learn the necessary lessons. We propose the liquidation of CR but we don’t suggest it should just suddenly cease publication.
The editorial board and the collective must first take a clear position in favour of terminating the journal. Then, they should proceed to explain their reasons to the readership and prepare for CR’s disappearance. Concretely, this should take the form of:
1) encouraging CR readers to subscribe to the communist press in Canada, to read and study all the different pamphlets and political line documents published by the various groups.
2) explaining to CR readers the necessity to study Marxism-Leninism, to take positions on key questions of ideological and political line, to organize themselves on a communist basis and carry out communist agitation and propaganda among the working class.
3) explaining the need to join a Marxist-Leninist organization with the correct line in order to undertake the task of fighting for a Marxist-Leninist communist party in Canada.
In this way, we can all move forward in the struggle to build a genuine communist party in Canada.
Canadian Communist League (Marxist-Leninist)
July 1976
* * *
Comrades:
We have followed your development since the first issue of Canadian Revolution and the Cercle Communiste (ML) would like to take this occasion to welcome the progress that the creation of CR marks in the ideological struggle for the unity of the Canadian Marxist-Leninist movement.
Our group first originated in a base group created by CAP Maisonneuve in Montreal in 1972 (linked to FRAP – the Front d’Action Politique – dominated by social democrats and Trotskyists). Since that time we have followed an extremely winding road, but one dominated primarily by right opportunism. Only recently has the struggle against opportunism both within our group and in the M-L movement in generally finally led us to repudiate the false road we had taken and to adhere firmly to Marxism-Leninism. At present we are undergoing a period of internal rectification at the same time as publically demarcating ourselves in the M-L movement through the publication of three documents.
The first document, La Lutte contre I’opportunisme (The Struggle Against Opportunism), is a first self-criticism, repudiating our past opportunist errors. In the months to come this self-criticism will be developed and deepened through other documents.
The second two documents are presented under the title; Quelques elements de contribution critique a l’elaboration du programme M-L de la revolution canadienne (Elements of a critical contribution to the development of the M-L program of the Canadian revolution), Parts 1 and 2. They present our political line and our view of the tasks of communists in the struggle for the creation of the party.
These documents are published, not with the objective of constituting a new organized tendency in the M-L movement, but rather of taking part in the struggle for the unity of Marxist-Leninists by contributing to the development of the M-L program for the proletarian revolution in Canada. Our own short-term objective is to unify with the M-L organization that emerges as the leading centre in the struggle for the party. As with our self-criticism, other documents will follow in the months to come with the object of developing our contribution to the M-L program thorugh ideological struggle.
We consider it essential that the ideological struggle for the communist program for the revolution in Canada take place on the highest possible level and in full view of the Canadian working class and M-L movement. We therefore consider it important that our point of view be widely propagated among Canadian Marxist-Leninists. We think that your journal is one important means to this end.
We regret that our present energies and the objective limits of a small group have not permitted us to translate our documents from French to English at this time. Nonetheless, if any of your readers who can read French wish to receive copies they can write to the following address:
P.O. Box 461, Station N, Montreal, Quebec
Revolutionary Greetings,
Cercle Communiste (Marxiste-Leniniste)