(This article first appeard in People’s Canada Daily News, Volume 6, Number 38, dated March 30, 1976.)
The Canadian Labour Congress and all revisionist and opportunist sects acknowledge that Trudeau declared war on the working class on October 13,1975. The CLC admits that Trudeau’s Bill C-73 “divides the Canadian community along class lines with the employers and the government ranged against the workers and their organisations.” But these so-called representatives of labour cannot yet see that classes, the propertied class, those who control the means of production and exchange (means of production and exchange in Canada are largely owned and controlled by U.S. imperialism and other imperialist powers), and the propertyless class, those who have merely labour power to sell, in real life existed long before the passage of Bill C-73 by Trudeau and his parliament. In fact, the Canadian community has been divided along class lines right from its birth.
But the point here is not to give a lecture to the CLC about the existence of classes in Canada. The point here is to explain that the CLC recognises only the existence of classes and not class struggle, that this non-recognition of class struggle is because of domination of the CLC by the NDP and revisionists. This is point one. The second point is that the CLC does not recognise the existence of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie which also is because of the NDP and the revisionists. The CLC states in its memorandum: “Your government has done what no other government of this country has been willing to do. It has legislated a programme which pits one group against another. It divides the Canadian community along class lines with the employers and government ranged against the workers and their organisations.”
Thus the CLC recognises that there are “employers and government” and the workers and their organisations“. Fine. This means that the CLC now recognises that there are classes: there is the class of “employers” which has government on its side and then there exists “workers and their organisations” against whom the “employers and government” are “ranged”. This is called class struggle but the CLC fails to recognise it. The fact that they do not recognise class struggle is shown by their assertion that it is Bill C-73 which “ranges” “employers and government” against “workers and their organisations”, what “no other government of this country has been willing to do.” But, dear sirs, even an ordinary worker with trade union consciousness will tell you that the “employers and government” have ranged against “workers and their organisations” right from the time the working class as a class came into being and from the time workers’ organisations were founded.
The CLC’s programme concerning Bill C-73 is to appeal to the bourgeoisie for its withdrawal. They want to use the militancy and force of the organised proletarians to get their appeal listened to by the bourgeoisie. There is neither class content in their appeal nor are they proposing any method, form, which will get organised proletarians fighting the bourgeoisie.
This line of the CLC comes from the NDP and the revisionists of the so-called “Communist” Party of Canada. It is they who do not recognise class struggle and dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. It is an objective fact that there are classes in Canada. These classes struggle and the state is the armed organisation of the bourgeoisie, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat. The NDP and revisionists do not recognise class struggle and dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
In order to oppose the CLC’s failure to recognise class struggle and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, it is imperative to oppose the NDP and the revisionists and other opportunist sects and groups.
We reprinted quotations from various sects of these revisionists and opportunists in PCDN No. 36. We showed that they have all taken the same position as the CLC. In order to grasp whether these sects acknowledge class struggle and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, we should analyse the content of their demands as well as the form and method they are proposing to fulfill their demands. The content of their demand is: Abolish Bill C-73. This is the sum total of their content. The method of struggle is to organise some type of local, regional or general strike for the duration of one day (limited) or until Bill C-73 is withdrawn (unlimited).
To oppose and denounce the treachery of these sects we will analyse the slogans [1] advanced by the “genuine Marxist-Leninists”, the anarcho-fascists. We will seek truth from what they say as well as from their objective role. The anarcho-fascists advanced four slogans. Number one and four of the four slogans are:
1. Let’s struggle against Trudeau Law!
4. Strengthen the fight back movement by preparing the general strike!
Then to fool people they added slogan No. 2: Reject false reformist solution! Slogan number three is added there for the purposes of self-exposure: Let’s mobilise the masses of the Canadian people around the working class!
We call these “genuine. Marxist-Leninists” anarcho-fascists for the same reasons we call some groups fascists. They actually are fascists but because of their pretensions to be “genuine Marxist-Leninists” they end up with the title: anarcho-fascists. There are three reasons why we call them anarcho-fascists: 1. They mystify everything 2. They are anti-communists, racists and anti-working class and 3. They use reactionary violence against the Marxist-Leninists. Let us just take point one, that they mystify everything.
Their main slogan Let’s struggle against Trudeau Law! is a straight-forward reformist slogan. But knowing that it is a reformist slogan they had to mystify it by their slogan No. 2: Reject false reformist solutions! What these false reformist solutions are, they do not tell. Instead, they breast-beat about certain organisations. They merely assert that the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) is a “counter-revolutionary gang which walks hand in hand with the bourgeoisie”.
But a mystifier will not study a thing in itself. Only by studying a thing in itself can one then study its inter-relationships. The issue here is Bill C-73. Their solution is: Let’s struggle against Trudeau Law. What is this slogan in itself if not the same as the revisionist slogan Abolish Bill C-73 or the trotskyist slogan Action program to defeat the wage controls or the CLC slogan Withdraw Bill C-73. Once cornered by the fact that their slogan is no more revolutionary than the slogans of the CLC, revisionists and trotskyists, these anarcho-fascists have to strike a posture in order to draw “clear lines” between themselves and the CLC, revisionists and the trotskyists. So out came the slogan No. 2: Rejest false reformist solutions.
Withdrawal of Bill C-73 is a reform and it is part of the bourgeois trade union politics. It does not matter how much mystification the anarcho-fascists create about this slogan, the fact remains that it is a reformist slogan. When we study the slogan Reject false reformist solutions, in itself, the anarcho-fascists could mean one of three things: 1. The anarcho-fascists consider all reform as false solution or 2. There are those who are advocating false reformist solutions in opposition to 3. Their own genuine reformist solutions. Now if they claim that their slogan No. 2 means that “all reform” is “false solution” then their advancing of slogan No. 1 Let’s struggle against Trudeau law is outright treachery and deception because struggle against Trudeau Law is reformism. Further if they claim that their slogan is “genuine” while the slogans of the CLC, revisionists and trotskyists are false then it is clear that their slogan too calls for genuine reformist solutions. Thus the reader can see that in actual fact they are just simple reformists but they have to give the slogan in such a manner as to advance a reform with revolutionary pretensions. Thus if we analyse that they are against reforms, they are anarchists and if we analyse that they are for reform, they are reformists.
The same charlatanism and mystification is found in their proposed method of struggle: Mobilise masses of the people around the working class! This slogan No. 3 is their self-exposure in the sense they admit that they have nothing to do with the working class. These mystifiers are caught here as eighty per cent or more of Canadian people comprise the working class. These “genuine Marxist-Leninists” are not going to organise the working class but the “people” around the “working class”. One can visualize graphically these “people” running around the working class. The slogan of “general strike” and “preparing for general strike” is also an anarchist slogan as there is nothing revolutionary in this form of struggle in itself.
Thus we find that these anarcho-fascists are advancing a straight-forward reformist slogan but they are deathly afraid of being exposed for what they are, reformists. So they jump up, down and sideways and then end up in smoke like ants on a hot pan.
Let us go further. What attitude should one take towards reformist issues and bourgeois trade union politics? Marxist-Leninists are not against all reforms but they are opposed to bourgeois trade union politics. There are reforms and there are reforms. Certain reforms advance proletarian struggle against the bourgeoisie and others do not. This leads us to unmask these anarcho-fascists further. Their slogan Reject false reformist solutions! truly exposes their mystification and deception. Now, when they talk about “false reformist’ solutions”, they must have .“genuine reformist solutions” in mind. Thus they exposed themselves brilliantly. We deduce that they are genuine reformists and are fighting for genuine reformist solutions. So their fight back movement is the movement of genuine reformist solutions.
From the tour slogans given by them, we find that
– they want to struggle against Trudeau Law,
– they are against “false reformist solutions”,
– they pledged to mobilise their “people” around the working class, and
– they want to strengthen the “fight back movement” that is the movement for “genuine reformist solutions” by “preparing for general strike”.
Thus they have detached economic struggle from political struggle, and are desperately trying to “lend ecouomic struggle a political character”. These anarcho-fascists do not believe that Politics is the Commander. They detach economic struggle from political struggle exactly in the same manner revisionists and trotskyists do. For these unprincipled eclectics everything exists in detached, ahistorical, isolated form. This is why they land themselves into such mire.
Economic, political and theoretical are three forms of proletarian struggle against the bourgeoisie. These are an integrated whole commanded by the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, that is class against class, that is class struggle. But the anarcho-fascists neither consider economic struggle as part of the whole proletarian struggle against the bourgeoisie nor do they advance a proletarian revolutionary line which will command all three forms of proletarian struggle, that is economic, political and theoretical. Thus neither do they assist any part of the proletarian struggle nor do they assist the entire proletarian struggle. Thus, they have to go around economic struggle and prove their “revolutionary credentials” by shouting a few “revolutionary” slogans or by writing such gems as their yellow journalism in order to go near the communist movement so that they can disrupt it.
The CPC(M-L) stands for-certain reforms like abolishing Bill C-73. But our slogan to the workers’ movement that is, the slogan commanding the proletarian struggle on all three fronts, economic, political and theoretical is Make the rich pay! This slogan is the organiser, mobiliser and unifier of the proletariat as it is based on Class struggle as tactics as Lenin puts it or Class struggle as the key link as Chairman Mao Tsetung teaches. Once the Class struggle as the tactics – Class struggle as the key link is forgotten, opportunism creeps into an organisation. These anarcho-fascists who claim to be “genuine Marxist-Leninists” never took up Class struggle as the tactics – Class struggle as the key link. That is why they have been disruptive and are disruptive in the workers’ movement and in the communist movement. These anarcho-fascists serve international opportunism and Anglo-American chauvinism and they are supporters of restoration of capitalism in China. They are the real Lin Piaoists as well because they wave the red flag to oppose the red flag.
Because they do not take up Class struggle as the tactics – Class struggle as the key link, their slogans are empty, devoid of any content and their form is sterile and woody and also devoid of any content. The four slogans they advanced are typical slogans of anarchists. Anarchists always get excited about general strike. According to the anarchists general strike is revolutionary in itself and actually is the only revolutionary activity. The anarcho-fascists also think in this manner that they have “proven” their “revolutionary” credentials by muttering something about it.
The Make the rich pay slogan has class content and as this tactic develops, proletarians will also give rise to forms consistent with the tactic. We are absolutely opposed to concocting forms without having any material basis, without actually organising struggle first and generalising these struggles later. The anarcho-fascists have merely picked up some forms of struggles from past history of the international proletariat as a show-off and they are bound to land themselves into further mire. They can yell “general strike, general strike” or “prepare for general strike” as much as they like. All this yelling is not going to teach them how to achieve immediate demands, that is, immediate class demands of which they have none, and how to fulfill the class aim of overthrowing the capitalist system and establishing dictatorship of the proletariat.
The CPC(M-L ) does participate in trade union struggle, and there, again, by taking up Class struggle as the tactics – Class struggle as the key link. Make the rich pay slogan commands and guides our work there as well. Comrade Bains pointed out in his speech ’Against Opportunism’: “We are organised as the political Party of the proletariat which has as its basic programme ’the seizure of political power by revolutionary violence, guiding the proletariat in its struggle to overthrow the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat so as to achieve communism’.” Our immediate task is to work out our tactical policy and plan in order to fulfill our basic programme. Make the rich pay is our tactical policy and plan, It is based on Class struggle as the tactics – Class struggle as the key link. Comrade Bains also pointed out: “It is this immediate programme which the opportunists of all hues are trying to undermine and it is the duty of all Marxist-Leninists to oppose these opportunists.”
But the anarcho-fascists do not have tactical policy and plan. Sooner or later they will mimic our tactical policy and plan to get out of the perpetual crisis of “line” they find themselves in. Over the years since the founding of the Party on March 31, 1970, we have not only sorted out the problem of establishing instruments of working class propaganda, and the building of the centralised organ of the Party but have also sorted out the question of our tactical policy and plan. In the coming years, we will sort out the question relating to actual struggle to make the rich pay and we will Make the rich pay. Anarcho-fascists are still stuck with “struggle organisation to build the Party” and they have neither basic programme nor tactical programme. Their basic programme is disruption of the communist movement and their tactics in real life bear witness to it.
For the CLC not to recognise class struggle is quite understandable. Political line of the CLC comes from NDP and “C”P, two class-collaborationist organisations. The hegemony of the NDP and “C”P over the CLC has to be smashed. Thus the CLC#8217;s line of not recognising class struggle and basing itself on class collaboration as the tactic is not a matter of denouncing CLC but a matter of defeating the NDP and revisionist influence in the organised labour movement. But anarcho-fascists first take up class collaboration as the tactic themselves, and then disrupt the workers’ movement to the maximum by their constant shrills against this or that “Labour aristocrat”. For them every trade union official is a “labour aristocrat” and labour aristocracy is not the “upper ranks of the working class movement”. These anarcho-fascists who are zeroes in theory and zeroes in practice run amuck everywhere with their nonsense which is actually a much more blatant class-collaborationist position than what the “labour aristocrats” advocate. These anarcho-fascists have done absolutely nothing to oppose labour aristocracy and revisionism but have taken the single over-all police mission: Smash CPC(M,L).
The anarcho-fascists recognise class struggle only on behalf of the bourgeoisie. Their position on the state of the bourgeoisie further exposes them. The consider Canada as a “bourgeois democracy”, that is it not the armed organization of the bourgeoisie, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat but democracy in general. They accuse the CPC(M-L) of “inciting” police and whenever the state attacks the Party, they are there to do the dirty work for the state.
Revisionists, trotskyists and anarcho-fascists are fooling the people on the two basic questions of class struggle and dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Their struggle for reform is the sum total of their “class struggle” and they try to cover this up through revolutionary verbiage. For example, the revisionists state: “There will be no relief for the working people until the present disastrous so-called anti-inflation policies of the government are changed and replaced by new policies, radical anti-monopoly policies which are geared to effectively combatting inflation, ensuring high employment and rising standards in a world of peace.”
For the revisionists, the same state whose executive committee has implemented “the present disastrous so-called anti-inflation policies” will, one day, have an executive committee which will implement “new policies, radical anti-monopoly policies which are geared to effectively combatting inflation, ensuring high employment and rising standards in a world of peace.”
Revisionists, also like the anarcho-fascists, do not want to be exposed as class-collaborators. So right after giving the policy of class collaboration, the policy of capitulation to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, they put forward revolutionary verbiage to obscure the issue. They write: “There will be no serious advances for the working class and trade union movement until right wing policies of class-collaboration are replaced by left wing policies of class struggle.” We ask: who is putting forward the “right wing policies of class-collaboration”? Could it be you revisionists yourselves? How much more rightwing can one get and how much more class-collaborationist policies can one present than your own? It is class collaboration and betrayal of the first order to advocate that the state is above classes and it can be transformed and can be made use of by the proletariat without smashing it up and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Make the rich pay! is the “Left wing policies of class struggle” but you are opposed to this revolutionary slogan. So the revisionists have done the same thing as the anarcho-fascists. First the anarcho-fascists advance their reformist slogan: Let’s struggle against Trudeau Law! Then, in order to fool people, they come up with the slogan: Reject the false reformist solutions. In the same way the revisionists first advance the policy of class collaboration and then themselves pretend to oppose it.
But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The revisionists, trotskyists and anarcho-fascists besides advancing reformist and class-collaborationist slogans are responsible for disruption of the workers’ movement and communist movement in many places. Their social practice is one of disrupting the revolutionary workers’ movement and the communist movement. While they do not take up Class struggle as the tactics – Class struggle as the key link proletarian revolutionary line, they are opposed to the dictatorship of the proletariat. Neither do they recognise the existence of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie nor do they aim at establishing dictatorship of the proletariat as the goal.
In conclusion, it is not the CLC which is to be blamed for not recognising class struggle and dictatorship of the bourgeoisie but it is the so-called “leftists’’, a whole host of them, which have to be blamed and struggled against. These sects and groups come up with various masks but they were all unmasked at Parliament Hill on March 22nd. They all took up a reformist slogan and tried to pass it off as something very “revolutionary”.
We must always put Politics in Command. When working in the trade unions, it is revolutionary politics which must be advanced but it there is no tactical policy and plan then what can one do except pursue bourgeois trade union politics. Make the rich pay is the only tactical policy and plan and we must not waste time in secondary issues like attacking the CLC or someone else for the failure of the revolutionary movement. It is opportunism which must be opposed. We must never forget class struggle and dictatorship of the proletariat. We must develop class struggle toMake the rich pay.
PREPARE FOR STRUGGLE! MAKE THE RICH PAY!
[1] The slogans referred to on page 7 and 8 appeared in a leaflet distributed by “Regroupement on a Marxist-Leninist basis of the following Marxist-Leninist, political and popular groups: Clinique du peuple de St-Henri, En Lutte!, Groupe d’action socialiste, Groupe inter-quartier, Mobilisation, Canadian Communist League (Marxist-Leninist)”.