En Lutte! wrote on April 1: “Of course, there were the neo-revisionists, the CPC(M-L) with their slogan which was taken right out of the gospel: Make the Rich Pay!”[86] Their brothers of the “Canadian” “Communist” League (“Marxist-Leninist”) distributed an anti-communist leaflet at Vieux Montreal CEGEP in April whimpering that the slogan Make the Rich Pay! is “devoid of any class content and has nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism.”
Now let us deal with the charge that the slogan Make the Rich Pay! is taken “right out of the gospel”. To begin, let us give you a quotation from Lenin – to whom you have vowed to be “faithful”. Lenin writes: “But how is politics to be understood? If politics is understood in the old sense, one may fall into a grave and profound error. Politics means a struggle between classes; means the relations of the proletariat in its struggle for its emancipation, against the world bourgeoisie.”[87]
And what are you telling the workers with your demagogy, with your “tiresome and confused repetition of ’universal principles’ ”?[88] You are telling them: Keep off politics, the politics of Make the Rich Pay! That is “a struggle between classes”, a struggle between the proletariat and people of Canada, and the U.S. imperialists and Canadian monopoly capitalists, a struggle between rich and poor, we dare say, both nationally and on the international scale. It may not fit your cribbed formulae but this is the way matters stand. And under your “tiresome and confused repetition of ’universal principles’ ”, you are telling the proletariat and people to forget about the Politics to Make the Rich Pay (because the slogan, according to En Lutte! comes from the gospel) but instead, to work for the “struggles for democratizing unions, for the recognition of women’s democratic rights”[89] and “for supporting workers’ struggles”.[90] How nice it sounds when you leftovers of the already buried and extinct opportunist sects pontificate: “All struggles of the proletariat and of the masses must hold communists’ attention. Their existence is the manifestation of the contradiction of capitalist society on the one hand, and on the other hand, the claims that are put forward here give witness to the more or less developed political consciousness of the working masses. The people’s struggles, therefore, provide just as much an opportunity for communists to intervene and to make the proletarian point of view triumph. It is mainly only because of their limited strength that Canadian communists cannot intervene in large numbers in these struggles at the present time.”[91] (And if you did not know the definition of “people’s struggle”, the “people” referred to are “social welfare recipients, students and women”!) What a sorry state of our Relics from 1900-02 who pledged themselves to “always march at the head of the movement”[92], who are past-masters in their Sunday confessions, and had confessed just yesterday that they were the economists, the counter-revolutionaries. Now, they pontificate with their snout in the backside of the working class movement, that all “struggles of the proletariat and of the masses must hold communists’ attention”. At the same time, they moan that “even though all workers’ struggles originate in the fundamental contradiction opposing capital and labour, it is nevertheless the case that most of them are not carried out in a revolutionary perspective with the purpose of attacking bourgeois power to weaken it, but rather in a reformist perspective which hides class contradictions and in this, prevents workers from reading a clear consciousness of their own interests as the exploited and oppressed class.”[93] Here is more of the “tiresome and confused repetition of ’universal principles’ ”!
First of all, dear sirs, you do not even have a party, you are groping in the archives of 1900-02 desperately seeking light so that you can escape political extinction. Secondly, your “struggle organization for the party” is not established either. Thirdly, you have not even clarified your basic and tactical policy and plan and you are giving yourself the right to gibber that “most of them (workers’ struggles – HB) are not carried out in revolutionary perspective”. We ask: Are there some which are carried out with “revolutionary perspective”?
Furthermore, they have concocted this nonsense that because “workers’ struggles... are not carried out in a revolutionary perspective with the purpose of attacking bourgeois power to weaken it”, and because these are carried out “in a reformist perspective” this “hides class contradictions”![94] What a gem! In all the countries where revisionism and reformism are diverting the proletariat from proletarian revolution, as in Canada and most of the world, the proletariat is not only fighting against imperialism but also against revisionism and reformism. Nice hiding of contradictions! Dear sirs, the books of 1900-02 which you quote read somewhat differently, but you misread them and you run with them. Those books of 1900-02 are not talking about “class contradictions” hiding, but they are talking about how the “spontaneous working class movement”, because of the abundance of bourgeois ideology, submits to bourgeois ideology, and how bourgeois trade union politics dominate it. This means that the working class movement, the unconscious movement of the working class, besides submitting to bourgeois ideology, also gravitates towards socialism.
It is this gravitation which is eclipsed for the time being. If you had read these classics of 1900-02 for the purposes of learning fundamental principles from them, instead of drawing historical parallels, then you would also have noticed that these classics state clearly that the working class movement without socialism, that is, the spontaneous working class movement, would arrive at socialism, would overthrow the capitalist system, but that it would take a long time, and with much sacrifice and difficulty. What does this mean? It means that the proletariat’s quest for emancipation can neither be eliminated nor can class contradictions remain hidden. The class struggle may be at low ebb during certain periods, but it is all too demagogic to suggest that “workers’ struggles carried out ... in a reformist perspective... hide class contradictions and in this way prevent workers from reading clear consciousness of their own interests as the exploited and oppressed class.”[95]
These anarcho-fascists are always talking about “clear consciousness” and from the quote given above and many other quotes from their bankrupt arsenal you will find that they do not Put Revolutionary Politics in Command. Readers should note that they are talking about “revolutionary perspective” and “clear consciousness” but not Putting Revolutionary Politics in Command. The reason they are doing so is because they have none. Here is more clear exposure of their nonsense: “But proletarian ideology will triumph over bourgeois ideology (sic) mainly amongst the advanced strata of the proletariat, but also among other progressive elements of the broad masses, only if Marxism-Leninism is spread on the largest scale. It is only through agitation and propaganda that communists will succeed in this, win over to proletarian ideology, to Marxism-Leninism, the advanced masses, and pull (pretty graphic! – HB) them away from the domination of bourgeois ideology.”[96] There is no mention of class struggle and no mention of revolutionary politics. Referring to Proudhon, Marx wrote to Annenkov in 1946 (Beware! En Lutte! may yet declare 1976 to be 1846 at the speed with which they are backsliding – HB): “Why does M. Proudhon talk about God, about universal reason, about the impersonal reason of humanity which never errs, which has always been equal to itself throughout all the ages and of which one need only have the right consciousness in order to know the truth? (Emphasis ours – HB)... he is incapable of understanding economic development.”[97]
Now you can see where En Lutte! stands. Gleefully with Proudhon, their kith and kin! If “only” the working class has “the right consciousness” then truth will be revealed to it. Otherwise, it is damned to grope in the dark. Thus, in the absence of “right consciousness”, that is, a “revolutionary perspective” and several other names which En Lutte! uses for the same thing, like “proletarian ideology”, “Marxism-Leninism” etc. “even though all workers’ struggles originate in the fundamental contradiction opposing capital and labour”, the “class contradictions” will hide from the workers and this will prevent them “from reading a clear consciousness of their own interests as the exploited and oppressed class.”[98] Thus, the precondition for knowing the truth is “right consciousness”. According to En Lutte!, consciousness is not the reflection of social being but rather a matter of “right consciousness”! An anarchist slogan through and through. It is for this reason that En Lutte! went to “right consciousness”, that is, the gospel, to find where the slogan Make the Rich Pay! fell from! It is for the same reason their brothers in crime, the so-called “Communist” League, cannot find any class content in the slogan!
Now let us deal with the slogan Make the Rich Pay! Let us begin the quotation from Lenin which I gave before:
“Politics means a struggle between classes; means the relations of the proletariat in its struggle against the world bourgeoisie.”
Thus it is this politics which is the commander and the decisive point. En Lutte! has taken the politics of “short-range political and economic struggles” or, if you want to be crystal clear about it, here is a dose of “right consciousness”. Here En Lutte! describes the “stages” of “communist intervention” in workers’ struggles:
“... very minimal, for example, a news article on the struggle, or the handing out to the workers concerned, of a leaflet containing a Marxist-Leninist analysis (i.e. the ’guide to action’ portion of their ’Marxism-Leninism’ – HB) of their struggle. It can ... be more developed and involved, for example, the organizing of certain forms of support, such as the popularizing of the struggle, the gathering of funds, or the picketing by sympathizers... Finally, communist intervention reaches its highest degree if communists take over the political and organizational direction of the struggle. Under present conditions, such a situation can only really occur in very rare (revisionists do it all the time in many struggles that you are posing — HB) and exceptional cases: it still remains, however, that this is the objective for which communists have to constantly strive... the communists’ striving for the leadership of the workers’ and people’s struggles should never lead to the lowering of the political level of their activities.” (How much lower can you get! – HB), ”.. the Marxists’ link with the masses is not the result of special techniques of propaganda, agitation, or organization, but only through the political activities of communists, carried out in the framework of workers’ struggles.”[99] There is the masterpiece: the political activities of communists, carried out in the framework of workers’ struggles!
Lenin writes about Russian Social-Democratic opportunism in this manner: “Russian Social-Democratic opportunism, however, differed from that of Western Europe in certain peculiar features. It strikingly reflected the point of view, or rather the absence of any independent point of view, of the intellectualist wing of the Party, which was carried away both by the current catchwords of Bernsteinism and by the forms and immediate results of the pure-and-simple labour movement. This infatuation led to wholesale treachery on the part of the legal Marxists, who went over to liberalism, and to the creation by Social-Democrats of the famous ’tactics-as-process’ theory, which firmly attached to our opportunists the label ’tail-enders’. They trailed helplessly behind events, plunged from one extreme to another, and in all cases reduced the scope of activity of the revolutionary proletariat and its faith in its own strength, all of which was usually done on the pretext of raising the independent activity of the proletariat. Strange, but true. No one talked so much about independent activity of the workers, and no one did do much propaganda to narrow, curtail, and diminish that activity as did the Rabocheye Dyeloists.”[100] This describes En Lutte! quite aptly.
Thus there are two lines in terms of politics, one advocated by En Lutte! and the other advocated by CPC(M-L). The first is:
The politics of En Lutte! of “correctly leading short-term economic and political struggles”, that is, straightforward revisionist bourgeois trade union politics!
This is the politics of carrying out opposite politics to professed goals. “The Marxist-Leninist movement links itself with the workers’ movement when, through participating in their struggles, it spreads Marxism-Leninism, not only as a general doctrine of class struggle, but also as a ’guide to action’, specifically, a guide to correctly leading short term political and economic struggles, on the one hand, and on the other, to take advantage of their immediate struggles as a means of developing class consciousness, the essential condition for the development of the long-term struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.”[101] Thus, En Lutte! has two hands, one pointing to this earth, bourgeois trade union politics, and the other to heaven, “the long-term struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat”.
Now our comrades can also see the deceitfulness and the treachery of the slogan which En Lutte! issued right at the time of the student struggles in Quebec, in the fall of 1974, when they wanted to have the struggles of the students inscribed “within the general movement of the workers’ and people’s struggle against the state of the bosses and against capitalism”! Here is what the revisionists state: “The Party seeks to win leadership of the majority of the working class by advancing its policies in the daily struggles for the immediate needs of the working people ...” “In the daily struggles of the workers the Communists see the socialist future of the working class.” Finally, “The Communist Party, through its work, its teachings, its leadership of struggles, fuses scientific socialism with the labour movement and by doing so spreads political and socialist consciousness among the workers – an awareness of their historic mission.”[102]
Where does En Lutte! stand in relation to revisionism? They are bed-fellows. En Lutte! represents revisionism from the ”left”, and ”C”P, revisionism from the right. Both are carrying out counterrevolutionary activities through their short-range and long-range rhetoric, this is why they are known as social-fascists as well. Socialists in words, fascists in deeds.
Here is what the revisionists state: The Revisionists:
1. “The Party seeks to win leadership of the majority of the working class by advancing its policies in the daily struggles for the immediate needs of the working people ...”
2. “In the daily struggles of the workers the Communists see the socialist future of the working people.”
3. “The Communist Party, through its work, its teachings, its leadership of struggles, fuses scientific socialism with the labour movement and by doing so spreads political and socialist consciousness among the workers – an awareness of their historic mission.”[103]
The “Communist” League as well as the Trotskyites have the same tactics. Only CPC(M-L) has the following basic line, and strategy and tactics:
Basic Line: “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.”
One leads to the other. Each has its distinctive features: at the same time, the two are one, exactly in the same manner as the three forms of proletarian struggle. Each has its own distinguishing features, but at the same time, they are just three forms of proletarian struggle. The three forms of proletarian struggle are opposite to the revisionist thesis of “three forms of struggle in which class struggle is waged”, precisely because as a decisive point, the Leninist thesis puts politics in command while the revisionists are “tail-enders”. Their long-term goal which they call an “historic mission” is merely to be talked about in order to confuse people, but their actual politics remains bourgeois trade union and parliamentary cretinist politics. Now to answer En Lutte’s gibber as to where the slogan Make the Rich Pay! comes from, and to sort out for their infamous friends of the “Communist” League, whether it has class content or not:
Let us begin by quoting from Dimitrov: “The Communist International puts no conditions for unity of action except one, and that an elementary condition acceptable for all workers, viz., that the unity of action be directed against fascism, against the offensive of capital, against the threat of war, against the class enemy.”[104]
Thus the “elementary condition” is “unity of action” “against the class enemy”. But En Lutte!, according to their own confession does not even consider this “elementary condition” when it cannot grasp even the essence of the slogan Make the Rich Pay!
The big bourgeoisie in Canada, the dominant and the most numerous portion of which are the U.S. imperialists, those who own the means of production and exchange, and expropriate surplus value of the proletariat, those who entirely dominate the state, are using the state To Make the People Pay! for their own economic crisis – the economic crisis which is the natural consequence of contradictions inherent in the capitalist system and which are further aggravated by the U.S. imperialist domination of Canada. Thus the slogan of the big bourgeoisie is: Make the People Pay! And what should be the slogan in opposition? A slogan which has the “elementary condition” that it is directed “against the class enemy”.
Oppose Bill C-73! Fine, but it is merely a reformist slogan. It still does not answer the slogan of the big bourgeoisie: Make the People Pay!, such that the class struggle of the proletariat takes place against the big bourgeoisie.
Make the Rich Pay! is the slogan of the proletariat and is directed towards people of all classes. The proletariat must mobilize all the people around itself and hit the big bourgeoisie.
Chairman Mao teaches: “The proletariat is the greatest class in the history of mankind. It is the most powerful revolutionary class ideologically, politically and in strength. It can and must unite the overwhelming majority of people around itself so as to isolate the handful of enemies to the maximum and attack them.”[105]
By advancing the slogan Make the Rich Pay!, and not by the nonsense En Lutte! is talking about, the proletariat can “isolate the handful of enemies to the maximum and attack them”.
Further, Dimitrov points out: “We must not confine ourselves to bare appeals to struggle for the proletarian dictatorship. We must find and advance those slogans and forms of struggle which arise from the vital needs of the masses, from the level of their fighting capacity at the present stage of development.”[106]
Make the Rich Pay is the slogan “which arise(s) from the vital needs of the masses” and reflects the “fighting capacity at the present stage of development”.
Dimitrov continues: “We must point out to the masses what they must do today to defend themselves against capitalist exploitation and fascist barbarity.” And he goes on: “First, joint struggle really to shift the burden of the consequences of the crisis onto the shoulders of the ruling classes, the shoulders of the capitalists, landlords – in a word, to the shoulders of the rich.”[107] Now is it clear, you anarcho-fascists, where the slogan comes from? Not from the “gospel” but from a great anti-fascist fighter. You may turn around now, to save your face, and proclaim that there is no fascism in Canada. But the issue is not that, the issue is Make the Rich Pay! Where do you stand on this action? “Against the class enemy”, an “elementary condition” for “unity of action”? Or do you stand on the side of the enemy? I am quite sure that your infamous friends “C”L must have now gotten the class content of the slogan and we can write it for them, in the pedantic language they may be able to see, that is with “Marxism-Leninism ... as general doctrine of class struggle”. Make the Rich Pay! means Make the “Ruling Classes, the Capitalists, Landlords” Pay for Their Crisis! or “Shift the Burden of the Consequence of the Crisis onto the Shoulders of the Ruling Classes, the Shoulders of the Capitalists, Landlords – in a word, To the Shoulders of the Rich!”
Now, comrades, we have drawn clear lines between the “Iskraists” who are living through the period of 1900-02, the pre-revolutionary period, with their “correct leading of short-range political and economic struggle” and the Marxist-Leninists of 1976, the revolutionary period when either revolution will prevent war or war will give rise to revolution. So tell the “Iskraists” of the 1900-02 pre-revolutionary period, that it does not matter how much they attempt to mystify and blur the differences between the Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries of 1976 and the “Iskraists” of the pre-revolutionary period of 1900-02 under the phrase they have learnt by rote (they should also put it to music because they sing it so much) that: ”Lenin put it plainly:
’Before we can unite, and in order that we may unite, we must first of all draw firm and definite lines of demarcation.’ ”And here for you opportunists we have drawn “firm and definite lines of demarcation” and these lines are between Make the Rich Pay! and “correctly lead the short-term economic and political struggles”; between the Marxist-Leninists of 1976 and the “Iskraists” of the 1900-02 pre-revolutionary period; between consistent opponents of revisionism and conciliators with revisionism; between those who follow Mao Tsetung Thought as the Marxism-Leninism of our era and those who follow the revisionist thesis of polycentrism on the question of theory.
We Are United! While You Are Divided! Schism and disunity will increase amongst you with every passing day. Unity amongst us will consolidate and strengthen with every passing day.
And as for you, young comrades of ANEQ, you young comrades who make up the Communist Youth Union of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), go and tell the whole world that We Are Going to Make the Rich Pay! This is our point of departure with opportunism of all hues, and also the “elementary condition” for “unity of action”. Tell them that ANEQ stands for defending the “basic interests of the students”. MAKE THE RICH PAY!
[86] En Lutte!, Vol. 3, No. 17, April 1, 1976.
[87] Lenin, V.I., “Speech at the Conference of Political Education Workers”, Collected Works, Volume 31, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1966, p. 371.
[88]“Against Economism”, En Lutte!, December 1975, p. 22.
[89] Ibid., p. 20.
[90]Ibid., p. 20.
[91] Ibid., p. 20.
[92] En Lutte!, English Digest Special Supplement (En Lutte!, No. 52), p. 11.
[93] “Against Economism”, En Lutte!, December 1975, p. 22.
[94] Ibid., p. 22.
[95] Ibid., p. 22.
[96] Ibid., p. 14.
[97] Marx, Karl; Engels, Fredrick, Selected Correspondence, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1953, p. 39.
[98] “Against Economism”, En Lutte!, December, 1975, p. 22.
[99] Ibid., p. 49-50.
[100] Ibid.
[101] “Against Economism”, En Lutte!, December, 1975, p. 47.
[102] The Road to Socialism in Canada, The Program of the Communist Party of Canada, 1971, p. 66 and p. 65.
[103]Ibid., p. 66 and p. 65.
[104] Dimitrov, Georgi, Report to the 7th Congress Communist International, 1935, Red Star Press, London, 1973, p. 60.
[105] Important Documents in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1970, p. 55.
[106] Dimitrov, Georgi, Report to the 7th Congress Communist International, 1935, p. 63.
[107] Ibid., p. 63.