First Published: The Forge, Vol. 3, No. 1, January 6, 1978
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
In Struggle has just produced its much touted “party draft program” and by doing so has totally exposed its revisionist mug. In the past In Struggle distorted revised and abondoned Marxist-Leninist principles one after another but it has tossed out the window for good so that it can create a new revisionist party
At the present time in our country, the struggle for the creation of the Marxist-Leninist party is surging forward and the day of the rebirth of the vanguard detachment of the working class is nearing.
So it’s no surprise that all agents of the bourgeoisie are stirring themselves and doing everything they can to sabotage the struggle for the party.
And among them the leadership of IS, traitors of the working class, is particularly active. It is dreaming about creating a “party”, a revisionist clique, so that it can rally all types of opportunists and broaden its sabotage and anti-communist campaigns.
The party IS wants to create is not one that will lead the class struggle, but one that will sabotage it; not one that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, but one that will try to prevent it.
And to achieve this IS is proposing a revisionist programme, a programme that blots out any perspective of struggle and which totally rejects the revolutionary science of the proletariat, Marxism-Leninism.
The draft program of this “party” (Its “fundamental guide”, “the principal instrument of its unity”, as IS calls it) sums up, expresses and exposes all the rotteness of IS’s revisionist line.
On the world situation, the contradictions in our country, the Quebec national question, the womens’ question, on every point the analysis is anti-Marxist and the positions completely rotten. We will not attempt to explain everything here. But let’s look at the foundations of this total betrayal, how IS treats the fundamental Marxist-Leninist principles.
The 16 point program doesn’t mention Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin nor Mao Tsetung, it doesn’t contain a single reference to Mao Tsetung Thought, nor does it voice support for the authentic socialist countries. IS stoops to the most shameless conciliation with the superpowers and to top it all off, it opens the door to the old revisionist “peaceful transition to socialism” theory.
When an organization like IS that claims to be Marxist-Leninist leaves these points out of its draft program, it certainly isn’t because it “forgot” to do so.
On the contrary! “Forgetting” Marxist-Leninist principles is in fact the very basis of the line of the “party” IS wants to create, a party made up of a mish-mash of opportunists. That’s why it’s essential that the 16-point programme be as vague as possible, open to all interpretations. Then IS will be able, in its “commentary” on the programme, to slip in one or two references to the great leaders, to Soviet social-imperialsm, all the while sticking to the same rotten strategic line. But it won’t mean a thing. As IS itself explained, the programme is the basis of unity and not the commentary.
There is no point in wasting your time looking for any reference to the five great leaders of the world proletariat in the 16-point program, because them isn’t any.
It is no surprise after all of IS’s attacks on the theory of three worlds developed by Mao Tse-tung, that there isn’t any mention of Mao Tsetung Thought either. Nor is it surprising that IS liquidates the question of support for socialist China. After all it has done nothing but slander red China for months now.
Actually there isn’t anything about any of the authentic socialist countries like Albania and Kampuchea in the programme.
Whenever the programme does mention “socialist countries” it certainly doesn’t tell you in any of the 16 points which “socialist countries” It is refering to. Is it refering to the revisionist countries in East Europe or to Cuba which hides under a socialist signboard in order to better serve as a Soviet mercenary when the USSR attacks the peoples of the world? The answer isn’t in the programme.
Now we know what IS’s programme is all about. It is a basic guide aimed at spreading confusion, a guide for attacking authentic socialist countries like China, for sowing confusion about the existence of socialism in the world today and for putting into question the very possibility of building socialism.
The programme is a model of conciliation with the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, the two main enemies of the peoples of the world. What’s more, Soviet social-imperialism isn’t even mentioned.
All IS has to say about the USSR is that it must be included among the imperialist countries “since its return to capitalism”. There is NOTHING about the USSR having become a social-imperialist superpower, about its social-fascism, neither does it mention that the USSR is the most dangerous of the two superpowers.
Splendid sabotage. This kind of action leaves the peoples of the world disarmed before their main enemies, the two superpowers, and leads them down the garden path while sabotaging their just struggles.
What’s more, in the commentary section, IS relegates all countries where there are bourgeois or feudal regimes to “the camp of reaction”. So much for the world united front. This gives us an idea about how IS sees the third world or 70% of the world’s population which constitutes a powerful force in the anti-imperialist struggle. And it shows us IS’s path for world revolution: isolate the world proletariat, the socialist countries and the oppressed peoples and nations and broaden as much as possible the target of our struggle!
It’s no surprise that IS completely liquidates the question of the danger of the third world war that the two superpowers are busily preparing. IS does however manage to slip in a word or two in the commentary section. But even there it merely mentions that “the threat of a new world war hangs over our heads permanently”. Of course IS doesn’t tell on that it’s the two superpower, who are “hanging” this threat over the heads of the peoples of the world.
This is how IS tries to prevent the working class from seeing its arch enemies, the two superpowers, and leaves the door wide open for an alliance with one or the other. This is how IS disarms the proletariat before the war which is brewing. Besides treacherously conciliating with our enemies, it attacks our allies, the peoples and countries of the third world, and thus tries to sabotage the struggle on the international level. We saw an example of their dirty work recently in Quebec City when they tried to sabotage a meeting that was part of the PAC campaign.
In Struggle’s program opens the door wide to the “peaceful road” to socialism theory. Here we are face to face with the rotten essence of revisionism.
IS refuses to assert that the only way to overthrow the bourgeoisie is through the armed uprising of the people, led by a revolutionary party of the working class. It substitutes this fundamental principle with generalities like “In its struggle to capture political power, the proletariat must conduct a relentless battle using every method of struggle.”
We’ve heard that one before! The fake “Communist” Party of Canada also liquidates armed struggle altogether. The arch-revisionists also prefer to say “the working class must be ready to use all forms of struggle to defeat capitalist violence and political reaction” (The Road to Socialism in Canada, p.55).
IS’s programme does not give the working class any orientation for making the socialist revolution in Canada. All the principles that guide the revolutionary struggle of authentic communist parties have been rejected. The whole analysis of the superpowers and of the danger posed by Soviet social-imperialism that was developed by the world Marxist-Leninist movement has been rejected. The entire analysis of the class contradictions In our country, all the positions and the orientations of struggle developed by true Canadian Marxist-Leninists in demarcation from the revisionists, reformists and all opportunists, all this IS has cast aside.
IS is trying to confuse the working class with its pseudo-communism in order to disarm it in the face of the bourgeoisie.
But we of the League have shown and will continue to show that it is only by firmly basing ourselves on the principles of Marxism-Leninism Mao Tsetung Thought that we will build a genuine Marxist-Leninist party in Canada. By linking ourselves more and more closely to the working masses, by getting actively involved in and assuming the leadership of class struggles in our country, we will build a true communist party and smash all the revisionists and opportunists like IS who try to sabotage our struggle and hold up the inevitable march of the working class towards complete emancipation. Reject IS’s phony communism and sabotage!
Build our communist party!