The struggle in Canadian Revolution was a struggle between those who wanted to maintain the Journal for the purpose in which it was founded and those who sought the hegemony of their own right-opportunist politics within it. The opportunists viewed their own politics as Marxism-Leninism itself, a fact beyond question and beyond examination, and their principle objection to our struggles was that we doubted this at all. We have sought in this pamphlet to show just who it is that is pointing the finger at others and calling them “saboteurs” engaging in “counterrevolutionary acts”, who it is that, is seeking to declare, on behalf of the entire movement, that others are outside of the Marxist-Leninist movement and are not worthy of being published in a journal of Marxism-Leninism; who it is that is seeking to declare, on behalf of the entire movement, what lines are Marxist-Leninist lines and what lines are not; and who it is that is calling for the Journal to provide “leadership”, “unity”, and “guidance” to the debate and what this “leadership”, “unity” and “guidance” consist of.
From the time of the founding of Canadian Revolution, members of the Bolshevik Tendency called for a journal allowing an open, wide and continuing debate on all questions which confront Canadian Marxist-Leninists. Our position is unchanged. There is no super-objective entity in our movement which can lead, “guide”, or pass judgment on the debate without itself participating in the debate and being opened for political examination. The correct political line will emerge in struggle and in struggle alone; and, at this juncture in history, the principle struggle towards this end is the struggle against right-opportunism in all its forms. “What is Marxist develops in struggle against what is anti-Marxist.”
The lessons which must be drawn from the struggle in Canadian Revolution relate immediately to the struggle to build the Communist Party in Canada. We have struggled, and will continue to struggle, for unity; but it must be a principled unity, a unity around thoroughly debated and correct politics, and a “unity of Marxists, not unity between Marxists, and opponents and distorters of Marxism”. We call for an open debate, not “guidance” of the debate; we call for Marxist-Leninist political leadership, not fake leadership; we call for the drawing of “firm and definite lines of demarcation” over questions of ideology, not over questions of property; we call for the building of a Bolshevik party to struggle against opportunism in all its forms, not a “hodge-podge Men-shevik united front” which sees itself as some sort of second-tier level of Marxist-Leninist political organization.
We have learned in a concrete way in our experience in Canadian Revolution that the struggle to build the party is one and the same as the struggle against opportunism, within as well as without the Marxist-Leninist movement. We have learned how easily some people, even those who start out with correct conceptions of how unity is achieved among Marxist-Leninists, degenerate into opportunism when the chances of hegemony present themselves. Lenin says that every new situation brings with it a new form of revisionism. In the struggle to build the party, this must never be forgotten.