Reprinted from PCDN, Volume 6 Number 34, March 20, 1976
Joe Morris and his crew are going to meet with the fat cat millionaires on March 22nd in the Parliament buildings. This is a supreme act of class-collaboration. Joe Morris and his crew have already released the “brief” he is submitting to the fat cat millionaires. The bourgeois press has carried front-page news about the brief and the news media has been blurting millions of words about this.
But things are turning into their opposite for Joe Morris and his crew. While on March 22nd, Joe Morris and his crew are going to disgrace the working class movement by actually meeting with the fat cat millionaires, the workers are also going to be there raising the class question: MAKE THE,RICH PAY! So the day of class-collaboration and spinelessness is goint to be turned into class struggle. This scares the bourgeoisie and its scribblers.
Richard Gwyn, writing in one of the Toronto newspapers, bitterly complained that labour was going to “man the barricades” and that “Marxist-Leninists are bound to join ... obscenities shouted at Trudeau may be the mildest thing that happens.” Ed Finn, a labour aristocrat and columnist for the Toronto Star, also echoed last week the propaganda about the utter futility of class struggle. But the real hysteria is coming from Joe Morris and his crew. They have a deep desire to organise a demonstration on Parliament Hill but for the purpose of strengthening their position in class-collaboration.
But the workers’ movement has already left them far behind. Knowing this, Joe Morris and his crew are, on one hand, feigning that they are organising the workers’ struggle to make the rich pay. But, in actual fact, they have taken up two shoddy wares of the bourgeoisie against the workers. First, they are promoting confronting the “constitutionality” and “legality” of the bourgeois attacks on the workers. Secondly, and more significantly than the first point, they are carrying out propaganda against “violence”. On March 17, Joe Morris repeated the bourgeois propaganda in order to divert from the issue. He said: “But we want to warn any groups who might plan to infiltrate our demonstration to create trouble that such action will not be tolerated by our membership”. The Globe and Mail gleefully carried this “warning” from the labour tyrant Morris under the headline “CLC Plans to hold Violence-Free Rally on Parliament Hill”, in the March 18, 1976 paper.
But Morris is only trying to fool public opinion. First of all it is not his “demonstration” which others are going to “infiltrate”. The groups he is issuing the warning to are those who have worked extremely hard to organise this demonstration through local union committees and unorganised workers committees. It is scandalous that Morris would call it his demonstration when CLC big-wigs have done everything not to organise it. Secondly, it is not a demonstration of class-collaboration and Morris will be absolutely in the minority. Thirdly, why raise the bogey of violence from certain groups while the reactionary army, uniformed and plain clothes police are going to be there to “create trouble”.
Morris and his crew are using a three prong-tactic in order to serve the bourgeoisie and liquidate the struggle to make the rich pay. These are:1. Concentrate the entire initiative to oppose the capitalist attacks onto CLC big wigs and divert this opposition into “legal” and constitutional” channels. 2. Organise no opposition of the organised and unorganised workers on a mass scale and 3. Blame the militant and progressive trade-un ionists for provoking reactionary violence. But this scheme is already failing as more and more unions and unorganised workers are taking the initiative into their own hands. They are organising the workers struggles against capitalist attacks and are not afraid of the reactionary propaganda of the bourgeoisie that workers are “violent” etc. and are organising to make the rich pay. Preparation for this demonstration has already proven that.
Workers from all over Ontario and Quebec and other parts of Canada will be converging onto Parliament Hill on March 22nd. In Quebec, a lot of discussion has been going on as to how to make the rich pay. Throughout late February and until the present several thousand workers organised mass rallies to deal with the issues. Thousands of common front workers participated in the discussion as well as students organised by ANEQ. Four thousand workers participated in a mass discussion on March 3rd in Montreal, 100 workers in St. Jean on March 4th and 300 maintenance workers shut down the primary and secondary schools run by Catholic school commission. Prior to these,meetings were held in Quebec City and Saguenay region in which over seven thousand participated.
It is estimated that around 24 thousand workers will be participating in the demonstration with 12,000 coming from Quebec, 6000 from Ottawa and 6000 from the rest of Ontario. The showing by smaller numbers of workers from Ontario is a result of the liquidationist activities of the labour aristocrats.
Workers will be arriving in Ottawa-Hull by cars, buses and train. The Full-time Committee to organise this demonstration has announced the following meeting points:
Ottawa – demonstrators are to meet at the base of inter-provincial bridge, Ottawa side.
Quebec – the cavalcade will travel Quebec roads to the Hull City Arena, then march over to the inter-provincial and join with the Ottawa contingent and march on to the Hill.
Ontario – demonstrators will assemble at Beacon Arms Hotel (Toronto not included in this).
Toronto – demonstrators will meet at the Skyline Hotel.
UAW members arriving by train – meet at Kent Street Holiday Inn.
Building Trades – demonstrators to meet at the Chateau Laurier Hotel.
The main issue involved in this demonstration is not how many workers and what the CLC big-wigs have done in terms of the demonstration. The main issue is simple and clear. The workers’ movement has already left CLC big-wigs behind. It is true that the struggle against class collaboration must be vigorously carried out but this class struggle against class collaboration hinges on what should the workers fight for, what should be their immediate objective? We have received various panaceas from the opportunists which can be divided in the following way:
1. CLC position: “Test ’legality’ and ’constitutionality’ of Bill C-73 and negotiate its withdrawal.” – The entire workers movement is being called upon to unite behind this position which we consider is very harmful to the workers’ movement and is class collaborationist.
2. Revisionist-trotskyist position: “Abolish Bill C-73, using same method as CLC and call for an alliance led by NDP.” – These are straight-forward class-collaborationist lines.
3. Anarcho-syndicalist position: “This is best enunciated by an anarcho-syndicalist group in Montreal who say to ’Overcome the capitalist crisis, down with capitalism itself’.” – This is a do nothing line which leaves the field open to CLC-revisionists and trotskyists.
4. Marxist-Leninist position of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) “Two aspects: a. Resist Bill C-73 through vigorous workers’ struggles at the place of work level, plant level, sector level and on the level of all sections of the workers resisting the capitalists together. b. MAKE THE RICH PAY! In short resist the capitalist attacks and make the rich pay. This is our immediate programme while the long,-range programme is to overthrow the capitalist system.”
Only the CPC(M-L) position will develop the revolutionary workers’ movement against the capitalist system. It is this position which is consistent with the actual situation prevailing in the working class movement and is a concrete programme to overthrow the capitalist system. On the eve of the workers’ march to Parliament Hill, we advance the following slogans:
VIGOROUSLY RESIST THE CAPITALIST ATTACKS!
MAKE THE RICH PAY!