On the 8th and 9th of April, 1977, for the second time in six months, Marxist-Leninist groups and individuals as well as many class-conscious workers met in Montreal to debate fundamental questions of political line that are at the heart of the struggle for unity in the Canadian communist movement.
During two days, the Second Conference of Canadian Marxist-Leninists gathered together more than 1,500 people who participated whole-heartedly in the debate on the path of the revolution in Canada.
The conference opened with the revolutionary song “Ouvre bien tes yeux camarade”, which explains clearly that the only objective of Marxist-Leninist unity is the unity of the working class around its vanguard Party.
Each of the eight participating groups was then allowed to explain frankly and openly its positions on the strategic path of the revolution and to give its point of view on the divergences that still exist in our movement on these questions.
Following this, the participants broke up into three workshops dealing with
(1) the characteristics of Canadian society,
(2) the camp of the revolution and the camp of reaction, and
(3) the tasks of the revolution in our country.
Without a doubt, it was the workshops that best allowed the participants from the floor to take an active part in the debate. Far from slowing down or obstructing line struggle, the participation of the masses was a powerful force in clarifying divergences and deepening the debate. Back in plenary session, each group was able to make a quick evaluation, evaluations upon which many participants then commented. A representative of anti-imperialist groups supporting struggles of Third World peoples and of immigrant workers’ groups came and testified to the growing unity of Third World peoples in the struggle against imperialism and hegemonism. Supporting fully the struggle for unity of Canadian Marxist-Leninists, this comrade took the occasion to emphasize that the current struggle against Bill C-24 on immigration required the greatest possible unity of Canadian workers with their immigrant brothers.
After the closing message from the representative of IN STRUGGLE:, more than 1,000 people sang enthusiastically the Internationale, very conscious that after the Conference it would be necessary to continue and even intensify the debate within the working class and the people, using the lessons drawn from the Conference.
It is important to remember that the Second Conference of Canadian Marxist-Leninists, while constituting an important step forward in the struggle for unity, hastened the publication of the positions of many groups that up until then had taken little part in the debate. We can note, among others, the publication of the positions of the Red Star Collective in “Canada: Imperialist Power or Economic Colony”, and those of Bolshevik Union in its journal Lines of Demarcation No. 5. As for the positions of IN STRUGGLE!, they have been published in the journal Proletarian Unity No. 3 and in our newspaper.
These important steps forward in the struggle for unity, and the wide participation of the masses in the Conference, demonstrated in practice the opportunism and sectarianism of the two groups that boycotted the conference right to the end. The Canadian Communist League (M-L) and the Regina Marxist-Leninist Collective refused, both before and during the Conference, to answer the calls of IN STRUGGLE! and other groups inviting them to come and defend frankly and openly their positions. These calls were not answered during the Conference. To criticize this sectarian gesture, and the contempt for the masses that it portrays, almost all the participants rose to adopt a resolution of censure (included in this pamphlet).
As the chairman of the Conference said, the aim in publishing the documents of this conference “is to raise one notch the line struggle on the questions of programme within the Marxist-Leninist movement. That is why our debates this weekend are so important and must be spread among the masses, for if the Party makes us conscious, to paraphrase Enver Hoxha, it is the masses who make the revolution:”
Unfortunately, due to the very large number of documents, speeches and interventions made at the conference, we have had to limit ourselves to the publication of the essential documents, mainly the interventions in the plenary’ sessions. Publishing the interventions in the workshops would have undoubtedly required several hundred pages more, and that is why we have preferred to limit ourselves to the synthesis of the workshops given by the chairman of the Conference.
Nevertheless, in its newspaper and journal IN STRUGGLE! will take up the polemics on numerous questions touched upon in the workshops and plenary sessions, and we invite each of the groups to do the same. Furthermore, one can consult the evaluation of the Conference published in the newspaper IN STRUGGLE!
Comrades, do not be afraid to intensify the debate on all questions of programme. By distributing this pamphlet, by discussing it in our study groups and with our work comrades, by organizing regional conferences and by carefully preparing the next national Conference that will deal with international questions – by doing all this, we contribute directly to the elaboration of the revolutionary programme of the Canadian proletariat. For only the programme of the Canadian revolution will guarantee the indestructible unity of Marxist-Leninists and the unity of the proletariat around its revolutionary vanguard.
STRUGGLE FOR THE UNITY OF CANADIAN MARXIST-LENINISTS!
STRUGGLE FOR THE REVOLUTIONARY PROGRAMME OF THE CANADIAN PROLETARIAT!
May 1977