First Published: The Call Vol 6, No 20, May 23, 1977
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.
The Canadian Communist League (M-L) and the October League (M-L) have held friendly discussions on a wide range of topics. The two organizations have established fraternal communist relations in order to strengthen at its highest level the unity of the proletarian revolutionary movements of our two countries.
The CCL(M-L) and the OL(M-L) base our relations upon the proletarian principles of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought; upon proletarian internationalism; and upon mutual combat against imperialism, social-imperialism, revisionism and all reaction; and on the basis of the equality and independence of our two organizations.
The CCL(M-L) and the OL(M-L) are part of the international communist movement which has grown up in the struggle against modern revisionism. This movement is growing daily in strength and unity. The establishment of fraternal relations between the CCL (M-L) and the OL(M-L) is part of the growing unity of the international movement, as well as a welcome event for the workers and oppressed peoples of our two countries.
While the concrete conditions in our two countries and class struggles differ, we can learn from each other, and assist and support the revolutionary struggles in each other’s countries.
Canada is an imperialist country of the second world and is an object of superpower contention and superpower plunder, particularly by U.S. imperialism. At the same time, it pursues imperialist interests of its own. In Canada, the principal contradiction is between the proletariat and the Canadian bourgeoisie. The Canadian working class has as its principal aim the overthrow of the Canadian imperialist bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism.
The U.S. is an imperialist superpower, one of the two main enemies of the peoples of the world. It is the task of the U.S. working class to overthrow the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie and establish proletarian rule.
The revolutionary struggles of the U.S. and Canadian proletariats are rapidly advancing, as part of the worldwide revolutionary movement. Our two working classes and the oppressed peoples of our countries have a long history of supporting each other’s struggles. Besides being close neighbors, they are exploited in many instances by the same U.S. imperialist corporations and are even organized into the same U.S. “international” labor unions. The Canadian people have for a long time fought against the exploitation and plunder of their country by U.S. imperialism. The tradition of cooperation and mutual support must be deepened and expanded by the communists of both our countries.
The Canadian Communist League (M-L) is working for the establishment of a genuine Marxist-Leninist vanguard party of the Canadian proletariat. It has greatly advanced the struggle against modern revisionism and all forms of opportunism in Canada and has united many Marxist-Leninists in the struggle for the Party. The Canadian Marxist-Leninists are fighting against the degenerate Communist Party of Canada (CPC), which is the main representative of modern revisionism inside Canada.
The October League fully supports these efforts to build the new Communist Party of the Canadian proletariat and for the role of the CCL(M-L) in the struggle; and for the Canadian people’s struggle against the revisionist CPC, which is an agent of the Canadian bourgeoisie and of Soviet social-imperialism.
The CCL(M-L) expresses its staunch support for the efforts to build a new vanguard party in the U.S. It welcomes the advances being made under the leadership of the OL(M-L) in the establishment of the Organizing Committee for the Marxist-Leninist Party and in preparing to found the new Party in the U.S. The CCL(M-L) regards the establishment of such a party in the U.S., one of the two superpowers, as a matter of great importance.
The CCL(M-L) expresses support for the struggle of U.S. Marxist-Leninists against the revisionist Communist Party (CPUSA), which is the main voice of modern revisionism in the U.S. Both the CCL(M-L) and the OL(M-L) hold that modern revisionism is the most dangerous opportunism in the world today, as it paves the way for social-imperialism and sabotages the proletarian revolution in each country. It is the sworn enemy of Marxism-Leninism and of revolution worldwide. Therefore communists of all countries must support each other in the struggles against revisionism, besides fighting it within their own borders.
The CCL(M-L) and the OL(M-L) declare that the establishment of new communist parties in our respective countries will be historic advances for the revolutionary movement of both countries and a powerful reserve for each other.
Our organizations discussed the imperialist crisis and the growth of the fight-back by the working classes of both countries in response to it. The October League expressed its support for the struggle of the Canadian proletariat against the Trudeau crisis measures. On October 14, 1976, a general strike of one million workers occurred across Canada, with communists playing a major role in it in several cities. This strike is rich in lessons for the U.S. working class. The fightback by the Canadian workers did not end with October 14 but is steadily mounting despite the attempts of the Canadian bourgeoisie and its agents in the labor unions to crush it.
The CCL(M-L) opposes the class collaborationist line of the agents of the bourgeoisie which dominate the labor movement. The CCL(M-L) advances the need to fight to transform Canada’s unions into class struggle unions in the hands of the workers and to rid them of the labor aristocrats and bourgeois agents.
The mounting resistance against the crisis is developing around the struggle for the right to work and against unemployment, against the wage freeze imposed by the bourgeoisie, against increasing attacks on health, safety and working conditions, against repression of working class struggles, immigrants, communists and militants in the unions.
The CCL(M-L) is waging struggle against all attempts to institutionalize class collaboration and incorporate trade unions in the bourgeois state apparatus through the “tripartite” schemes of the labor bureaucrats and the bourgeoisie.
The struggle of the U.S. working class and oppressed peoples is also surging forth. The fight against unemployment, political repression, police attacks, wage cutting and education and social service cutbacks have sharpened the resistance of . the U.S. workers in the past few years.
The struggle of the rank-and-file workers against the imperialist labor lieutenants and their bourgeois line in the trade unions is gradually gathering strength, as was seen in the recent miners’ wildcat strikes and the boycott of the steel elections by many rank-and-file workers.
The October League (M-L) expressed its full support for the just struggle of the oppressed Quebecois nation for self-determination. The Canadian Communist League (M-L), upholding the right of self-determination for Quebec up to and including the right to secession, is combating all forms of national oppression, including the denial of language rights.
The CCL(M-L) combats both great nation chauvinism and narrow nationalism. The CCL(M-L) stresses that while the right to self-determination must be firmly upheld, only socialism can guarantee respect for the right of an oppressed nation to self-determination and an end to oppression.
The CCL(M-L) is at the present time opposed to the Quebecois nation separating from the rest of Canada, as this will only lead to a weakening of the unity of the Canadian proletariat in the face of its principal enemy, the Canadian bourgeoisie, while sapping the strength of the Canadian people as a whole in the face of, the two superpowers’ and particularly U.S. imperialism’s hegemonic aims.
The struggles of the oppressed national groups in Canada such as the Native-Canadians, Inuit, Metis, Acadians, and French minorities outside of Quebec have also greatly intensified. Immigrant workers from the second and third world countries are combating job discrimination, racism, police repression, and deportations. In these struggles, they are strengthening and uniting with the general working class struggle.
The CCL(M-L) has also taken up the struggle for the freedom of Gary Tyler, Afro-American political prisoner in the U.S. This has been a concrete manifestation of proletarian internationalism.
The October League maintains that the movements of the nationally oppressed peoples in the U.S. constitute the main ally and a direct reserve of the U.S. working class.
The millions of Afro-American people suffer national oppression under the rule of monopoly capitalism both as an oppressed nation in the Black Belt region of the southern U.S., and as an oppressed national minority throughout the rest of the country.
The October League holds that the aim of the Black liberation struggle in the U.S. is for full democratic rights up to and including the right to self-determination, that is, the right to secede in their historic homeland in the Black Belt South. The OL fights to win the whole U.S. working class to support the right of self-determimation for the Afro-American people.
The CCL(M-L) fully supports the just struggle of the Afro-American people for the right of self-determination. The October League is fighting for full democratic rights and against all national oppression of the many oppressed nationalities within the U.S. – the Puerto Rican, Chicano, Native American, Asian-American, Afro-American and other oppressed peoples, and for the struggle of the Puerto Rican people against colonialism and for independence. The CCL(M-L) warmly supports these just struggles.
The CCL(M-L) and the OL(M-L) draw inspiration and great lessons from the socialist countries. We hail the People’s Republic of China and the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, and their tremendous advances in building socialism and resisting the attacks of imperialism and social-imperialism.
We hail Chairman Hua Kuo-feng and the Communist Party of China and First Secretary Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labor of Albania, who are respectively leading the Chinese and Albanian peoples in continuing the revolution and waging the class struggle under socialism.
We congratulate the Party of Labor of Albania and the Albanian people on the recent successful holding of the Seventh Party Congress and their accomplishments in socialist construction. The adoption of the new constitution of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania is an important step in the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Albania.
The CCL(M-L) and the OL(M-L) warmly greet the recent victories of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people in exposing and defeating the revisionist “gang of four,” who attempted to usurp Party and state power and restore capitalism in China, a fortress of the world revolution. This victory of the Communist Party and people over the Chiang-Chang-Wang-Yao gang is shared by the peoples of the world who rejoice that once more a plot for capitalist restoration has been smashed.
China and Albania serve as shining examples of revolutionary struggle and stand at the forefront in opposing imperialism, social-imperialism, and modern revisionism. The CCL(M-L) and the OL (M-L) reaffirm our solemn pledge to defend China, Albania, and all the other socialist countries.
Our organizations share a common basic understanding of the world situation today. Our epoch is the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolution and today all the basic contradictions of this epoch are sharpening. The world revolutionary movement is advancing rapidly and steadily, as the struggle of the proletariat in the capitalist and revisionist countries for socialist revolution, and the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed peoples and nations for national liberation and new democracy gain in importance. Chairman Mao Tsetung’s brilliant analysis of the division of the world in three continues to enable us to distinguish correctly between friends and enemies on the world scale. “Countries want independence, nations want liberation, people want revolution!” Our work in Canada and the U.S. and internationally is progressing under very favorable conditions.
Yet as the inter-imperialist contention between the two superpowers becomes more intense, the factors for a new world war are rapidly accelerating. The source of this new world war is the contention between the two superpowers. The main source of war between the two of them is the USSR, which is the younger of the two and the more aggressive. The USSR is the latecomer to the imperialist feast. It is also the more dangerous of the two because it shrouds itself in the cloak of socialism while striving aggressively for world domination.
The fundamental character of U.S. imperialism has in no way changed. It continues its ruthless exploitation and oppression of the peoples and countries wherever it can.
The war preparations of the two superpowers heighten the already urgent necessity for the closest cooperation between the communists of all countries, and particularly for unshakeable unity between communists within the second and third world countries and those within the superpowers.
The war preparations of the superpowers must be resolutely opposed by our peoples. In no way can we allow any illusions of alliance with, or reliance upon, one of the other superpower, but must fight against them both. Furthermore, we must awaken the people of both countries about the war danger and expose all talk of “detente,” which is promoted by social-imperialism.
Canada is a second world country and suffers from the hegemonic practices of both superpowers, particularly U.S. imperialism. The U.S. has penetrated Canada economically, politically and culturally. Because of its geographic position and the threat of a new world war, the Canadian people must be prepared to combat attempts by either superpower to attack or occupy their country. This makes very acute the need for close fraternal ties between the revolutionary parties and working classes of our two countries.
In addition, we as communists of the U.S. and Canada have the tasks of building internationalist solidarity with the struggles of the third world for national liberation, new democratic and socialist revolution, and against imperialism, colonialism and hegemonism. The third world is the main force today fighting against imperialism, colonialism and hegemonism, and is a great and invaluable ally of the proletarian revolutionary movements in both Canada and the U.S.
It is further our duty to aid and support those countries and peoples fighting against Soviet social-imperialism as well as U.S. imperialism, and against all imperialism and colonialism, and to support the proletarian revolution in every country.
In the past year our international communist movement has suffered a most profound loss with the passing away of our great leader and teacher Chairman Mao Tsetung. The Canadian Communist League (M-L) and the October League (M-L) have reaffirmed our determination to uphold the teachings of Chairman Mao, the greatest Marxist-Leninist of the contemporary era.
The CCL(M-L) and the OL(M-L) further affirm our determination to strengthen their support of genuine Marxist-Leninist parties throughout the world and to work on the basis of proletarian internationalism and Marxism-Leninism, for the unity of the international communist movement.
The future of both our peoples is bright. The future of the world revolutionary movement is bright. Whatever difficulties may lie ahead, the CCL(M-L) and the OL(M-L) are confident that the strengthening of the fraternal relations between them will stand as a positive contribution to the development of the revolutionary movement in our two countries and internationally.
April 1977,
Signed by representatives of the Central Committees, Canadian Communist League (M-L) and the October League (M-L)