Marxist-Leninists are not afraid to admit their shortcomings; they are, on the contrary, anxious to identify their errors in order to rectify them and advance more surely towards the proletarian revolution. Lenin explained this attitude in the following way:
Frankly admitting a mistake, ascertaining the reasons for it, analyzing the conditions which led to it, and thoroughly discussing the means of correcting it -that is the earmark of a serious party; that is the way it should perform its duties, that is the way it should educate and train the class, and then the masses. (“Left-Wing” Communism, an Infantile Disorder, Peking edition, page 51)
Through our study of Marxism-Leninism, the deepening of our analysis of concrete situation in Canada, the development of our political activities and the struggle to establish a Marxist-Leninist organization, COR, CMO, and MREQ have deepened considerably our political line and heightened our political consciousness. We have also been able to identify certain errors and shortcomings in our general line and in our political activities over the past years.
In this respect, much progress was made during the struggle for unity between our three groups. Our groups learned much from the exchange, debate, and ideological struggle that occurred. We came to more clearly understand the nature of the errors we had each committed. Of course, identifying errors does not eliminate them. But it does provide a good basis for combatting them.
A brief self-criticism of the groups follow. These self-criticisms do not comprehensively analyze all our activities but rather attempt to evaluate the essence of the work we have done, highlighting the principal positive and negative aspects.
The Cellule Militante Ouvriere (CMO) was created in February 1974 by militants who had been members of the Secteur Travail (Work Sector) of the former CAP St. Jacques (Political action committee of St. Jacques neighborhood).. As the result of a long and intense struggle against the opportunist and revisionist direction of the Secteur Travail, many of its militants were excluded, while others chose to leave.
These militants regrouped on the common basis of opposition to the opportunism and economism of Secteur Travail in order to wage the struggle against the Regroupement des Comites des Travailleurs (RCT – Regroupement of workers’ committees) which issued from it.
From its very beginnings the CMO set itself the tasks of systematically criticizing right opportunism and economism, seriously studying Marxism, Leninism, and Mao Tsetung Thought and reorienting on a non-economist basis the mass work of its militants, principally centered in work places.
The CMO also set itself the task of developing links and exchanges with other Marxist-Leninist groups in order to strengthen the unity among groups sharing the same objectives.
Very early we realized the importance of strictly defining which are the authentic Marxist-Leninist groups and distinguishing them from those which are Marxist-Leninist in words only. This was important because among the various groups of militants formed after the disintegration of CAP St. Jacques some claimed to be Marxist-Leninist while at the same time maintaining links with the RCT and in the main applying the same fundamentally opportunist orientation,, At the same time, the political groups gravitating around the Secteur Travail and the CAP had developed a conciliatory attitude with respect to its opportunism. They claimed that the Secteur Travail had been “linked with the masses”, and that the empiricist “errors” of which it had been guilty were less serious and dangerous than dogmatic errors. This particularly describes the position of Librarie Progressiste.
The demarcation with all these opportunists was one of our first preoccupations. It was thus on the solid basis of studying Marxist-Leninist theory and struggling against right opportunism that the CMO developed.
After a period of study, reflection, and summing up, we published our Manifesto “Pour l’Unification des Marxistes-Leninistes” (“For the Unification of Marxist-Leninists”), in which we drew the lessons of our experience of struggle against opportunism, revisionism, and economism.
In our manifesto we correctly affirmed that the principal danger for the young Canadian communist movement is right opportunism and especially economism. We insisted on the importance of study and the application of Marxism-Leninism, the criticism of modern revisionism and the struggle against “left” and right deviations in the Marxist-Leninist movement. We put forward the necessity of the creation of a Marxist-Leninist organization, and the importance of arriving at unity on the basis of political line and through the method of debate among Marxist-Leninist groups according to the principle of unity-criticism-unity. We were one of the first groups to criticize feminist theses on the question of housewives and to propose a clear analysis on the woman question. Similarly, we presented the basic principles and some tactical elements of communist work in the trade unions.
But our text “Pour l’Unification des Marxistes-Leninistes” contained some errors as well. The main mistake which we committed was on the principal contradiction in Canada, which we defined as pitting the Canadian monopoly bourgeoisie allied with U.S. imperialism against the Canadian proletariat. This analysis is mistaken. Though we tried to link the international situation and the internal situation and to take into account the division of the world into three, we failed to do so successfully.
Despite our efforts our position was incorrect for various reasons. Firstly, we fused qualitatively different contradictions. Secondly, we underestimated the danger which Soviet social-imperialism represents for the Canadian people. Thirdly, we underestimated the contradictions between the Canadian bourgeoisie and U.S. imperialism. Lastly, we mechanically applied to our situation the analysis which Mao Tse-tung made of the Chinese bourgeoisie, dividing the Canadian bourgeoisie into national and comprador fractions.
Our first error consisted in fusing qualitatively different contradictions. In fact, our analysis led us to identify the principal contradiction as being that which opposes the Canadian bourgeoisie allied with U.S. imperialism on the one hand, and the Canadian proletariat on the other. But, this position did not take into account the fact that imperialism is opposed not only to the proletariat, but to the whole people. In such a situation, this contradiction is resolved in a specific way, by national liberation war. On the other hand, when the principal contradiction is bourgeoisie-proletariat, this is resolved by means of socialist revolution. We had mixed things up. This did not allow us to rigorously specify the character of the Canadian revolution, introduced the possibility of sliding to the right, and singularly complicated the clear identification of the targets and tasks of the revolution.
Our second mistake arose principally from our difficulties in linking the analysis of the international situation and the internal situation, and our inability to take into account the most important secondary contradiction in the determination of strategy and tactics. This contradiction opposes the Canadian people and the two superpowers, especially U.S. imperialism. Even though our manifesto tried to take into account the menace which U.S. imperialism represents for our people, we neglected the question of social-imperialism. We did not see that in the present-day context, when the factors of war are advancing because of the all-out competition between the two superpowers for worldwide hegemony, Soviet social-imperialism represents an ever-increasing danger for the security of the Canadian people.
Our third error was underestimating the contradictions between the Canadian bourgeoisie and U.S. imperialism. This error had basically the same source as the previous mistake. We had not yet drawn lessons from the new international situation created by the decline of U.S. imperialism and the accompanying rise of Soviet social-imperialism. It is because of this new situation that the Canadian bourgeoisie enters more and more into conflict with U.S. imperialism.
Finally, our fourth error was in mechanically applying the concepts developed by Mao Tse-tung to the Canadian bourgeoisie. We concluded the existence of two fractions in the Canadian bourgeoisie without adequate study. Moreover, everything indicates that we should speak rather of two tendencies, one of which affirms national independence, and is now on the rise, and the other which capitulates before U.S. imperialism.
Our errors are principally due to a poor understanding and mechanical application of the fundamental principles of dialectics Our text contained a major mistake; at the time of its writing we had not understood the important proposition that “The study of the various states of uneveness in contradictions, of the principal and non-principal aspects of a contradiction constitutes an essential method by which a revolutionary political party correctly determines method by which a revolutionary correctly determines its strategy and tactical policies both in political and military affairs. All communists must give it attention.” (Mao, On Contradiction, Four Philosophic Essays, pp. 59-60).
It was in the process of struggling with our comrades from COR and MREQ for the unification of Marxist-Leninists, and in deepening our study of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tsetung Thought that we were able to rectify our positions and arrive at a much more correct formulation of the principal contradiction.
As well, we committed certain errors of an economist nature. Through study, summing up of our practice and the criticism of the economism of CAP St. Jacques, we came to understand the fundamental importance of communist agitation and propaganda. But we committed the error of not considering this as the principal practical task at the present time; rather, we considered it as equal importance with the tasks of organization and participating in and initiating mass struggles.
This error was reflected in our practices. Taking as excuse the small number of militants in our group and thus our limited capacities, we put off until later, until the creation of the Marxist-Leninist organization, the task of developing a large and abundant communist agitation and propaganda. In the meantime, we limited our communist agitation and propaganda to the most advanced and combative elements of the proletariat and popular masses, while our agitation to the large masses was of an economic type, linking immediate economic demands with immediate political demands (e.g. the struggle against the bourgeois state, repression, the attempt by the bourgeoisie to transfer to the working class the burden of the crisis, etc.). This wait-and-see error (wait for the organization in order to create a communist newspaper and means of agitation and propaganda) aggravated the effects of our economist error on the role of agitation and propaganda at the present stage.
But these errors were identified and rectified by a process of summing up and criticism, self-criticism. We produced a propaganda pamphlet and communist tracts and we directed our militants in the transformation of their practices in order to give primordial importance to agitation and propaganda. This reorientation and clarification was formulated in our pamphlet “De quelques questions brulantes sur la ligne tactique” (“Some burning questions of tactical line”).
But this brochure contained some economist left-overs, especially on the question of implantation. We considered implantation as the principal way of linking up with, the masses. This was a confused position which objectively could lead to downgrading the role of agitation and propaganda. Linking up with the masses is carried about when communists accomplish the totality of their tasks, and especially at the present stage, agitation and propaganda. Implantation is an important, but not sufficient, means of bringing communist agitation and propaganda into the factories, recruiting the advanced elements of the working class and setting up factory cells. It is also an important but not the only, means of giving struggle experience to militants of intellectual origin and thus contributing to their ideological re-education. In the present circumstances in Canada, given the small number of workers won over to communism and the petty-bourgeois origin and lack of experience of the majority of Marxist-Leninist militants, implantation, or sending militants into factories, is still of some importance.
Another error was committed on the organizational front. Very early in our development, we correctly established that our principal organizational objective was to set up communist cells in the factories. But in practice, and this is linked to our errors with respect to agitation and propaganda, we placed too much importance on mass regroupments such as trade union struggle groups (factory newspapers, information committees, etc.), to the detriment of study circles and thus the preparation of factory cells. In these forms of mass organization, we did not always do sufficient communist agitation and propaganda to raise the level of consciousness of the members of these groups.
Moreover, in speaking of these mass groups in our pamphlet “De quelques questions brulantes sur la ligne tactique” we used the term “intermediate organization” which gave the impression that we considered them as something other than mass groups. This mistake was shamelessly used by En Lutte! to deform our position, in order to accuse us, among other things, of elevating “intermediate organizations” to the level of principal and rejecting communist organizational tasks in practice. Nevertheless, even the most rapid reading of the pamphlet along with a minimum of intellectual honesty would quickly show the inaccuracy of these accusations.
Our position is clearly explained there. We advance the position that the principal task of communists on the organizational front is the setting up of factory cells. And on page 25 of our pamphlet we list their activities. As for trade union work we underline the necessity of doing communist agitation and propaganda (p. 28) in order to rally the advanced elements of the proletariat to our cause. Secondly, at the tactical level, and given the characteristics of the workers’ movement in Canada and Quebec, we state that it could be necessary to actively work in, and even set up, mass organizations such as trade union democracy committees, newspaper committees, etc, but always in the sense of working to accomplish our principal objective at the present stage of Party-building, rallying the advanced elements of the proletariat to communism.
In deepening the process of criticism and self-criticism and through our debates with COR and MREQ, we were able to rectify our mistakes and thus collectively formulate a correct position for the Marxist-Leninist organization.
Despite its incorrect positions on the principal contradiction and its economist mistakes, the CMO never sank into opportunism. Its insistence, from the very beginning, of the importance of studying Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tse-tung Thought, as well as its struggle against all deviations, permitted it to recognize the mistakes it had made and take the necessary measures to correct them. The important lesson to draw from this experience is not that Marxist-Leninists should never make mistakes, hut rather that once an error is made, honest Marxist-Leninists must fearlessly use the arm of criticism and self-criticism in order to expose the root of their errors and take the radical means necessary to correct them.
Among its positive points we should mention that the CMO often insisted on the importance of the struggle against Soviet social-imperialism, and on various occasions while many progressive groups and certain Marxist-Leninist groups adopted a conciliatory attitude towards those who refused to denounce the Soviet superpower, the CMO waged a principaled battle in order to denounce the two superpowers. The CMO was also one of the first groups, long before the publication of its manifesto, “Pour 1’unification des marxiste-leninistes,” to put forward the necessity of a Marxist-Leninist organisation to struggle for the party.
In making the sum-up of the errors and accomplishments of the CMO we conclude that on the whole, its contributions, despite its errors, were very positive and that it brings to the Canadian Communist League (Marxist-Leninist) militants who have been tempered in the struggle against deviations from Marxism-Leninism and who have a significant degree of experience of work in the ranks of the working class and the popular masses.
The COR was created on April 11, 1974. It was the final result of a struggle against reformist and populist tendencies; a struggle which brought a small number of militants in a working-class district in Montreal to turn towards Marxism-Leninism in order to resolve the questions before all genuine revolutionaries in Canada. The fact that our group was composed, right from the start, in the majority, of militants of working-class origin was of particular importance for the Marxist-Leninist movement.
From its inception, the COR always made a big effort in the work of Marxist-Leninist education of the most advanced workers, both men and women. We always put forward the necessity of working for the fusion of Marxism-Leninism and the labour movement, that the workers should assimilate and master Marxism-Leninism as a powerful weapon in the revolutionary struggle. We drew a clear line of demarcation between ourselves and the right opportunist current in the labour movement, represented mainly by the RCT. As well we fought the “left” opportunism represented at that time by Atelier Ouvrier (Workers’ Workshop), a study group for workers which rejected Marxist-Leninist theory and communist work in the trade unions.
But if our group fought opportunism and rejected reformism, that doesn’t change the fact that in the beginning we did not have a clear political line and for a long time neglected theoretical work and made our priority local practical work. Our first published document, “Pour l’Organisation Marxiste-Leniniste” was marked with this theoretical weakness. It contained an incomplete and sometimes erroneous analysis of several aspects of the international situation. We advanced no position on the women’s question – an integral component of the proletarian revolution. We but mentioned the principal contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat and there was extensive analysis in the text to back up our position. As well as that we had a confused and erroneous line on the tasks of Marxist-Leninists in Canada, at the present stage,, But our group was to pursue its theoretical tasks and produce a text on communist work in the trade unions (“A Propos des Syndicats – Classe Contre Classe” – About Trade Unions – Class Against Class). This text represented a development of our political line but maintained an unclear position on the principal objective of the first stage of the development of the party – to rally the working class vanguard to communism – and did not situate agitation and propaganda as our principal task at this stage.
In July 1975 we published Red Star in which we developed our analysis on the international situation, our position on the unity of Marxist-Leninists and the Marxist-Leninist organization, the Quebec national question, and we also tried to resituate ”implantation” in its proper place as a secondary but important tactic for communists in Canada.
The debates with the CMO and the MREQ, during this period, much contributed to the clarification of the political line of our group. Amongst other things we retain the correct analysis of the MREQ on the principal contradiction in Canada and the importance of the woman question for the proletarian revolution put forward by the CMO.
For a long time the Marxist-Leninist movement in Canada neglected the struggle against the two superpowers even if in theory we recognized it as part of the proletarian revolution. Our group contributed considerably to situate the secondary contradiction between the Canadian people on the one hand and the two superpowers, particularly American imperialism on the other. We pointed out, not only the danger of social-imperialism for all the people of the world, but also, more specifically its role in Canada. Thus, through the debates among the three groups we contributed to the articulation: of the most important contradictions in Canada today.
The evolution of our political line also allowed us to identify the economist mistakes in our practice at all levels. Our group was young and lacked experience in the revolutionary struggle for socialism. In this way, it reflected the state of the Canadian Marxist-Leninist movement in general. Economism and right opportunism of all sorts, are the main danger for the Marxist-Leninist movement in Canada at the present time. Hence the need to frankly identify and correct our rightest mistakes.
We have struggled from the beginning against economism and revisionism of the “Secteur Travail” of CAP St-Jacques (See our text “Les Syndicats et “le travail communist” (Unions and Communist’ Work; J. Masse).
But economism also took on diverse forms in the work of our own groups. Firstly, we relegated communist propaganda and agitation to a secondary importance. For a long time we had no public presence under the pretence that the COR was too small a group to proclaim itself publicly. But even if their number be small or their force still feeble, the principal task of communists during the first stage of party-building is agitation and propaganda to win over the vanguard of the proletariat to communism. Without a public presence a group can hardly carry on communist propaganda and agitation and would thus remain for a long time weak and few in number.
We often limited ourselves to propagating, not a Marxist-Leninist, but an “anti-capitalist” or “minimal” line. We did either simply economic agitation, or, at the most a political agitation on an economic basis. We did not do political agitation in the widest sense until quite recently. Communist agitation and propaganda must take first place in communist work at the present stage of the construction of the party.
Economism was also reflected in our position on “implantation”. In our first text we put forward implantation as an essential part of communist work, even a criteria to demark oneself form “left” opportunists. We confused the sending into factories of militants of petty-bourgeois origin, with the necessity of establishing communist bases – factory cells. Even the self-criticism in the “Red Star” was only partial. We still maintained that implantation was the means to proletarianize the Marxist-Leninist movement in Canada, whereas the means to proletarionize a communist organization, is not to send militants of petty-bourgeois origin into the factories, but rather to recruit more militants with a working-class background. We ought to establish factory cells in the principal industrial centers in Canada. To establish these cells, the organization must rally the advanced workers to communism. This is done by agitation and propaganda and also by the organizational means necessary and by participating actively in working-class struggles. The CCL(ML) can apply the tactic of sending [militants, regardless of their class origins, inside the factories, in order to do communist agitation and propaganda and rally the most advanced workers to communism. It also remains that implantation in a factory, in conjunction with theoretical study and criticism, self-criticism, can be an important element in re-educating militants from a petty-bourgeois background.
But it is the political line that determines the proletarian character of an organization. Our group has had a “wait and see” attitude, towards the question of a Marxist-Leninist newspaper in Canada. We put our energies into producing local newspapers that had a “minimal” political line instead of making communist work at the national level the priority. The publication of one issue of the “Red Star” was partly an attempt to correct this mistake.
For the organization, the principal means of communist agitation and propaganda must be a national Marxist-Leninist newspaper. Only such a paper can give a collective character to agitation and propaganda, as well as being a collective organizer for the organization across the country.
Our group, along with all Marxist-Leninist groups in Quebec, followed an economist line in the CSLO, created in 1973. Later we waged the struggle for a correct line in the support of workers’ struggles. We put forward the necessity to create support fronts instead of a mass organization for the support of workers’ struggles. Communist should participate openly and actively in these fronts.
The greatest step for our group towards a correct political line was the self-criticism and rectification of our localist and economist errors and rightist spontaneist conception of the central task of Canadian Marxist-Leninists at the present time – the creation of a Marxist-Leninist party. At the time of its creation our group thought that our task was to build cells in “our” locality and that this task would be accomplished elsewhere, by others, so that one day we could unite into a single party. But the party is built from top to bottom and is not generated spontaneously like a mushroom. We quickly corrected this mistake by undertaking the struggle for unity with other Marxist-Leninist groups; but still for a long time, we put local practices ahead of the struggle for Marxist-Leninist unity throughout the country. This was equivalent to putting the creation of the party in the background.
In the struggle for unity in the Marxist-Leninist movement we have had to face, on several occasions, other groups who manifested erroneous, even opportunist attitudes in their relations with us; in particular, we mention En Lutte!.
Our first contacts with the Marxist-Leninist movement were largely with the militants, members and sympathisers of En Lutte! We were even involved in different processes which were aimed at unity with En Lutte!
All these processes had one thing in common – they were not based on unity around political line but rather on unity without principles. We also share the blame for this error because we didn’t attempt to fight it at that moment. This spontaneous line of En Lutte!’s on the unity of Marxist-Leninists showed itself in right forms – unity through common practice (for example the CSLO initiated by En Lutte!) and also in “left” forms – their attempts to absorb us in their group without debate on the political line of the two groups, their narrow “group spirit.”
In the fall of 1973, En Lutte! created the Comite Ad Hoc (Ad Hoc Committee) which had as its objective to develop the unity of Marxist-Leninists. With a heterogeneous composition of Marxist-Leninists and progressive groups the CAH was neither a place for communist formation, nor a place for developing an analysis of the actual situation and the strategy for the revolution in Canada. After a time, militants from our group who had participated in the CAH experience began to put into question the whole process. We brought up the contradictions between the objective of the CAH, the unity of Marxist-Leninists on one hand and its composition and its method on the other in a meeting with the Steering Committee of the CAH. We suggested at this moment that the best method to proceed towards unity would be by debate between the already constituted Marxist-Leninist groups. This committee, controlled by En Lutte!, tried to divided the CAH into small debating groups, rather than explain our criticisms to other members of the CAH, which led to its dissolution a few months later. A real public self-criticism by those who initiated it was never made.
Towards the end of the CAH, in the summer of 1974, certain leaders of En Lutte! (who said that En Lutte! was not, at that time, a Marxist-Leninist group but a progressive group with Marxist-Leninists participating inside it) tried to create, in secret, a “Marxist-Leninist organization.” Called “Project A”, this attempt aimed, on the basis of “special invitations” to certain militants from diverse progressive groups, at creating an organization without a political line, but necessitating the strictest centralist discipline and “faith” in certain “leaders.” Once again En Lutte! later abandoned this attempt once they had seen the false nature of this process.
Our reticences, during the “secret” meeting to found the group were seen by all the organizers as antagonistic contradictions with all the people present, which didn’t include any members of the principal Marxist-Leninist groups other than En Lutte! (there were no members of the CMO nor of MREQ, and they had never been invited to participate). The members of our group quickly realized the falseness of this road to unity, made a self-criticism of their participation in this experience, and proceeded to work for the unity of Marxist-Leninists on the basis of ideological and political unity.
There was never an open and forthright self-criticism on the part of En Lutte!. En Lutte! even said in December 1974 in “Creons l’organisation marxiste-leniniste de lutte pour le parti” that they had adopted a ”waiting” attitude towards the creation of the organization. In terms of debates publicly with other Marxist-Leninist groups it was true, but En Lutte! had “forgotten” to mention “Project A” and their “private” actions.
At the start our group, feeling isolated from the Marxist-Leninist movement, wanted unity at any price with the first contacts. This was an error which we had to correct after the experiences with En Lutte!. But we made another serious error by never having engaged in open polemics against the opportunism of En Lutte! in the struggle for unity. Instead of this, we withdrew upon ourselves, on the pretext that we were too small and too weak to engage in polemics. We did not publicly put forward our differences and our criticisms of En Lutte! on the unity of Marxist-Leninists, the international situation, class contradictions in Canada, the woman question and the unions.
The reverses which we suffered in the struggle for unity with En Lutte!, the criticism of our errors, led us to develop our political line, to clarify our positions on the key questions in the Marxist-Leninist movement in Canada. This strengthened our group.
We strengthened our position towards the struggle for the creation of the party and we engaged ourselves firmly in the process of unity on the “basis of political line, which has led us to the point today of dissolving our group together with MREQ and CMO to form the Canadian Communist League (Marxist-Leninist).
Today we go beyond the framework of our local and primitive work and we truly embark upon the road to proletarian revolution in Canada. Only the Canadian Communist League (Marxist-Leninist) will be able to truly rectify our economist errors. We are taking a great leap forward towards the creation of a Marxist-Leninist party in Canada. We must continue this struggle for the party and for proletarian revolution in Canada, by fighting against right opportunism, the main enemy, and “left” opportunism, in our own ranks as throughout the Canadian Marxist-Leninist movement.
The Mouvement des Etudiants du Quebec (MREQ) was created in January 1972 by several Montreal students with little political experience and weak links to the masses. Though they sought to base themselves on Marxism-Leninism, they did not grasp the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism. In effect, the founders of MREQ ignored their responsibilities to the working class, the only truly revolutionary class. They created an organization which defined itself as a “student vanguard”; yet a vanguard among students cannot exist before there is a proletarian vanguard (an authentic communist party or organization.)
The political line of this “vanguard” boiled down to a definition of the immediate tasks of “revolutionary students” – that is, the struggle against the capitalist school and the support for workers’ struggles and anti-imperialist struggles – without any basis in a strategic line.
Essentially, the initial political line of MREQ promoted an erroneous conception of the creation of proletarian vanguard: it negated the necessity for revolutionaries to work for the construction of a Marxist-Leninist communist party where none exists. MREQ settled for “advancing the consciousness of students to the positions of the working class” while waiting for the party to be created„ With that as its starting point, MREQ renounced communist agitation and propaganda directed towards the working class and limited itself to supporting (that is, to following) the spontaneist workers’ movement.
MREQ was thus created on a spontaneist basis. This fundamental error condemned it to not defending the interests of the proletariat. In this sense, it was the expression of petty-bourgeois revolutionary ideas within the youth movement, particularly within the student movement.
In practice, MREQ drifted into workerism, separating the role of workers (to fight to abolish capitalist exploitation) and that of revolutionary students (to support the spontaneous workers’ movement.) This meant maintaining a separation between scientific socialism and the workers’ movement rather than trying to fuse them. This in no way helped advance the revolutionary movement.
In short, MREQ’s practice was dominated by an anti-Marxist, non-dialectical conception of the relation between revolutionary theory and practice. This could lead only to opportunism.
MREQ’s work in the student milieu – its only work for almost two years – was strongly marked by right opportunism, which assumed a “leftist” cover.
The underestimation of the role of revolutionary theory, and thus, of ideological struggle, led MREQ to neglect if not liquidate its independent intervention as a revolutionary organization, greatly limiting its work of communist agitation and propaganda. Two exceptions to this rule include the publication of our paper, THE PARTISAN, with correct articles on the international situation and the problems of our revolution; and, above all, the teaching of Marxism-Leninism in study groups which was only undertaken systematically after two years of activity. These facts show just how formal our recognition of Marxism-Leninism was at MREQ’s creation and during its first period of existence. We can also see why MREQ existed as an organization regrouping “revolutionary” students for such a long time (almost four years).
Among the notable opportunist errors of MREQ in its first period when it did only student work, there was workerism and economism which characterized especially our work in support of workers’ struggles (and the work in the CSLO); a “wait-and-see” policy (or incapacity to spark struggles); and tailism (when the masses took action) on the front against the capitalist school. To round out the list, we should add activism (intervention without investigation) as well as a “leftist” denunciation of struggles for reforms – above all concerning academic struggles – which failed to see that these can serve the revolutionary struggle if correctly used, especially when the struggle is for democratic rights.
But the conditions for identifying and combatting the bourgeois line which dominated MREQ existed inside our movement. On one hand, there was the integrity of its members towards Marxist-Leninist principles which necessitated the summing up of work – that is, confronting this practice with the principles of Marxism-Leninism.
The second period of MREQ began with the adoption of a new political line, presented in the October I974 document, “Towards the Marxism-Leninist Organization.” This text marked the beginning of MREQ’s rupture with the “revolutionary” petty-bourgeois characteristics of spontaneism and workerism.
Only the beginning, for the Introduction to the text recognized spontaneism not as an error of principle concerning the role of revolutionary theory and as the ideological root of opportunism but only as an insufficient assimilation of Marxism-Leninism. It was nevertheless the beginning of a real rupture – for once we put forward the need to work for the creation of the party of the proletariat and we undertook a practice in the working class with the goal of spreading Marxist-Leninist ideas, the determining condition for the development of a proletarian line was present. The continued study of theory (including the study of the international communist movement) tied to the struggle to apply the Marxist-Leninist line; the deepening of the critical analysis of our own experience (summing up)j the application of democratic centralism (reorganization); and the practice of criticism self-criticism (internal ideological struggle) – all these factors allowed us to overcome our bourgeois line.
On the basis of the political line it put forward a year ago, MREQ played an important role in the struggle for the creation of the Canadian Communist League (Marxist-Leninist).
With the publication of “Towards the Marxist-Leninist organization,” MREQ was the first Marxist-Leninist group to proclaim throughout the country the need for an organization whose central task would be the creation of the Marxist-Leninist communist party to lead the proletarian revolution in Canada. In Quebec, the manifesto came out when most Marxist-Leninist groups were trying to clarify their political line.
Our document was also distributed in the rest of Canada. It was certainly not the least of MREQ’s merits to situate its intervention on a national scale; our movement contributed to the unity of Canadian Marxist-Leninists by encouraging debate on the major questions of the Canadian revolution as well as the organization of militants. MREQ also combatted pseudo-communist opportunism, principally that of the counter-revolutionary organization which calls itself the “Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)”.
We did, however, commit a “wait-and-see” error in the struggle for the creation of the Marxist-Leninist organization, that is we did not resolutely undertake to fulfill the tasks of communists before creating and in order to create the Marxist-Leninist organization. In effect, we had a tendency to wait for the creation of the organization to do “real communist work”. We thus underestimated both the role of practice in the development of political line (being lax in producing a self-critical sum up of our practice) and the ideological and political preparation of our comrades. In a unilateral way we relied upon political debates among Marxist-Leninist groups. One result of this error was that we neglected to involve and rely on our sympathizers in the struggle for the creation of the organization.
In addition to its role in Canada, it should also be noted that MREQ maintained, to the extent its limited means permitted, fraternal ties with parties and Marxist-Leninist organizations throughout the world, making known the struggle in Canada for a Marxist-Leninist organization and its role in that struggle. This reflected an internationalist attitude in contrast to national narrowness.
From this liaison with the international communist movement, MREQ reaped precious fruits in terms of political lessons and encouragement.
Above all, MREQ served the revolutionary cause of the proletariat and the Canadian Marxist-Leninist movement by the development of its political line. In the struggle for the creation of the Marxist-Leninist organization, even before October 1974, MREQ always put unity around political line in the forefront, as the principal and sine qua non condition for unity, thus avoiding the widespread error of “common practice” as the road to unity of Marxist Leninists.
The line presented in “Towards the Marxist-Leninist Organization” contained correct elements, which were dominant, as well as errors or insufficiencies which we have corrected in struggle.
Among the correct elements, there was, first of all, the unequivocal affirmation of the primacy of the fundamental line of the communist party: Marxism-Leninism Mao Tsetung Thought„ Second, the analysis of the international situation was correct, if insufficient, while the analysis of Canada had a correct position on two fundamental aspects of strategic line: the principal contradiction and the Quebec national question. MREQ was the first Marxist-Leninist group to define the principal contradiction in Canada today as that between the Canadian bourgeoisie and proletariat, in contrast to the widespread idea that is between American imperialism and the Canadian people. This analysis of the principal contradiction was not, however, developed enough. Third, the October text put forward the fusion of scientific socialism and the workers’ movement, the penetration of the Marxist-Leninist organization into the heart of the proletariat (and into its main mass organizations, the trade unions) in order to win over the best, most devoted elements. It correctly insisted on the need for a constant application of the mass line, for investigation, and for the greatest devotion during class confrontations, in order to implant the communist organization in the masses.
But this line also suffered from certain weaknesses. First of all, it did not concretely establish the link between the situation in the world and in our country, mainly because of a lack of depth in the analysis of the second world. Consequently, we did not clearly situate the Canadian revolution in the world proletarian revolution or Canada’s role in the world united front against the two superpowers. The analysis of the international scene also failed to underline the rapidly aggravating Soviet-American rivalry and the danger of a new world war.
These insufficiencies came out in the analysis of the contradictions in Canadian society. Our definition of the important secondary contradiction opposing Canada to American imperialism “forgot” the other superpower, the one that is on the offensive.
In practice in the past year, this resulted in a neglect of the struggle against the two superpowers in our propaganda and a failure to do agitation on the question, particularly over the danger of war. In supporting anti-imperialist struggles as well we lacked firmness in the denunciation of the Soviet Union’s hegemonism, especially when we participated in coalitions to support different Third World national liberation struggles.
Another important error in our line in analyzing the concrete situation of our country was our total silence on the oppression of women. MREQ found itself fairly ill-equipped to intervene on the question and play a leading role fighting opportunism. We nevertheless laid the basis for correcting this error by a relatively in-depth study and the development of a basic position on the question, in addition to a struggle against the manifestations of male chauvinism within our ranks.
But we undoubtedly committed our gravest errors on the question of the fusion of Marxism-Leninism with the workers’ movement. For the line in “Towards the Marxist-Leninist Organization” did not make a break with the fundamental error of spontaneism and workerism which marked MREQ since its origins. This led us in practice to make economist errors, that is, to neglect communist agitation and propaganda, doing economic agitation above all and concentrating our activity on shop papers.
Our definition of the tasks of communists recognized the need to bring about the fusion of scientific socialism with the workers’ movement, but still only formally. It accorded too much importance to the growing links the organization should have with the masses in order to lead their struggles and relegated communist education (agitation and propaganda) to a secondary position. Yet this education is the determining factor in the development of the proletariat’s class consciousness, the task which moves to the forefront in the first stage of party-building. We, however, over-emphasized the exemplary actions of communist militants – a necessary but in no way determining factor in making the proletariat aware of its fundamental interests and in leading it in the revolutionary struggle.
This led us, on a tactical level, to steadfastly privilege the implantation of communist militants in factories to the point of making it an exclusive tactic (“the tactical line”, as we put it), if not a question of principle.
Implantation is a correct tactic in the concrete conditions of our country (a separation between the Marxist-Leninist and the workers’ movement, the absence of a strata of communist workers, etc.) when the Marxist-Leninist organization must win the most advanced workers to communism. It reflects an understanding of the fact that communists, who by their agitational and propaganda work are the educators of the proletariat, must themselves learn from the masses, applying the mass line to he good teachers. But implantation is not the only way to conduct communist agitation and propaganda – far from it. Suffice to say that intervention from outside factories is an equally indispensable means.
At the same time, we created a fair degree of confusion by associating the implantation of communist militants in the working class with two questions (of principle): the proletarianization of the Marxist-Leninist organization and the ideological remoulding of its militants. Contrary to what we implied, the proletarian character of the organization is determined by its political line, whose correctness is tested In practice. The proletarianization of the organization consists not in the implantation of its members in the working class but in the implantation of the organization itself; that is, in the fact that the organization rallies and has in its ranks a growing number of workers. It is thus a matter of the social composition of the organization.
As for the ideological transformation which all communist militants, whatever their class origin, must undergo, it consists of the acquisition of a communist world outlook. That comes about first of all by the study of Marxism-Leninism linked to a revolutionary practice of struggling against the class enemy; and by a struggle against the manifestations of bourgeois ideology in the practice and lifestyles of the organization’s members. Such an outlook is manifested in a constant application of “serving the people”. The implantation of militants in the working class is not the determining element in the revolutionary transformation. At the same time, work in the factories and other production center and, more generally, direct links with the popular masses constitutes the material basis for the re-education of communists from a petty bourgeois origin.
Finally, in regard to the trade unions, the positions present in “Towards the Marxist-Leninist Organization” were correct. Our over-estimation of the spontaneist working class movement and our still largely formal understanding of the tasks of communists, however, were reflected in the lack of clear definitions of militant and communist activity in the unions. While dialectically linking communist education with the participation in daily struggles including the battles to transform class collaborationist unions into instruments of class struggle), we did not define communist education in terms of agitation-propaganda and, what’s more, we did not note its leading role. This led us in certain cases to limit our educational work in the working class to the production of shop papers and political study within that framework.
To sum up, MREQ has been a petty-bourgeois revolutionary organization, dominated for the greater part of its existence by a spontaneist, essentially right opportunist orientation, that is, by a bourgeois line (one which objectively serves the interests of the bourgeoisie). For as Lenin showed:
... all worship of the spontaneity of the working class movement, all belittling Of the role of the “conscious element”, of the role of Social-Democracy, means, quite irrespective of whether or not the belittler wants to or not, strengthening the influence of the bourgeois ideology over the workers.
And:
to belittle the socialist ideology in any way, to turn away from it in the slightest degree means to strengthen bourgeois ideology. (What is to be Done?)
Only after ridding itself of its principal spontaneist conception to take part in the struggle to create the Marxist-Leninist communist party of the Canadian proletariat and to begin the practical work of fusing scientific socialism with the workers’ movement – only then could MREQ eliminate in essence, the; principal manifestations of spontaneism which always marked it. In this way, it was able to overcome its bourgeois line; first and foremost by a study of Marxist-Leninist theory linked to revolutionary practice and by a positive ideological struggle in its own ranks as well as through debates with comrades from other groups.
It is because a proletarian line could develop inside our movement that MREQ can now pass on to the creation of the vanguard organization of the proletariat. This is its greatest contribution to the revolutionary movement. But MREQ does not have the organizational characteristics which permit the consolidation of this proletarian line, its framework being too narrow. That is why MREQ must disappear to make way for an authentic Marxist-Leninist organization. This confirms better than ever that the correctness of political line determines everything.
By its liquidation on a correct political basis (after unearthing the root and identifying the political essence of its errors) in order to create the Marxist-Leninist organization, MREQ makes a notable contribution to the revolutionary cause of the proletariat. To the working class it gives a contingent of militants determined to fulfill the tasks which fall to them.
These militants are conscious of the determining role, for the success of the revolution, of the political line based on Marxism Leninism Mao Tsetung Thought, and of the necessity to wage a resolute struggle against all forms of opportunism.
From these self-criticisms, the three groups would like to draw several general conclusions.
Our three groups have always placed much emphasis on the question of ideological and political line. We devoted much energy to developing an understanding of the international situation, the nature of our society, the tasks of communists today, etc. Our respective political line documents contributed significantly to the development of the ideological struggle among Marxist-Leninists. Further, our three groups have held a basically correct attitude on the question of unity, insisting on unity around political line. We refused unity on an opportunist basis and combatted the theory of “common practice.”
The Marxist-Leninist organization will continue to place primacy on questions of political line. The organization (and the party) is built on the basis of its line. It is not the number of people in an organization but the correctness of its line which determines everything.
The whole process of building unity among our three groups proves that unity is the result of struggle. During the meetings and exchanges between our groups we consistently waged the ideological struggle in order to expose errors and to adopt a correct Marxist-Leninist political line. And, as a result, our line is strongest and more developed precisely on those questions which the struggle was most intense.
Unity cannot be based on fear of struggle over line, on capitulating to erroneous lines, on not criticizing an error because it might “offend” someone. Unity established in this manner is opportunist pure and simple and can never last. Provided one adopts a correct attitude of unity-criticism-unity, intensive struggle cannot hinder unity but only build it on a more solid foundation.
To correctly understand the revolutionary forces in any country, it is essential that communists make the link between the national and international situations; that they see the place of their country in the world context. Each of our three groups committed errors in this regard either by neglecting some internal or external factors or by confusing their relationships for example minimizing the importance of the Canadian bourgeoisie or neglecting social-imperialism. These errors have been mainly of a right opportunist nature. In the course of the struggle for unity, we overcame these errors. However, in the future we must attach greater significance to grasping the evolution of the international situation and to understanding the relationship between the two. For only in this way will it be possible to formulate a correct strategic line for the development of the proletarian revolution in Canada.
Our three groups all made the error of waiting for the creation of the Marxist-Leninist organization before assuming certain tasks or rectifying mistakes of the past. We put off correcting some of our economist practice on the pretext that the organization would be created soon and that we did not have the means to carry out extensive agitation and propaganda work immediately. This is incorrect since communists must always take up the tasks that need to be accomplished even if their forces are small or the conditions difficult. Failing to rectify an error simply makes it much harder to correct it later.
Furthermore, we had a tendency to limit ourselves to debate between groups. We did not carry on polemics and open ideological struggle sufficiently and we did not prepare our militants and sympathizers adequately for the creation of the Marxist-Leninist organization.
We have learnt from our errors and are resolved to correct them. The Marxist-Leninist organization will struggle forward, avoiding any passive or “wait-and-see” attitude in the march toward the creation of the party.
The political errors which the three groups committed were above all rightist errors, notably, economism. This was manifested in our work in the working class by communist propaganda which was too restricted and by agitation which concentrated too much on the economic demands of the workers.
This economism also was reflected in the errors the three groups made on the question of implantation.
Among other manifestations of economism, we should note the primitiveness of work, resulting in an unsustained, unstable revolutionary activity, and localism which each group exhibited in different ways.
These errors are corrected in the political line of the Marxist-Leninist organization. The organization will have to pay special attention to extend the rectification of these errors into its practice. And, more generally, it will have to commit itself to firmly denouncing right opportunism and forestalling all deviations in its own’ ranks.