[Reprinted from EN LUTTE! no. 46, p. 4-5, October 9, 1975]
On Saturday September 13, the Congress of the C.S.L.O. was held. This congress was the C.S.L.O.’s last, as the overwhelming majority of the group-members voted its dissolution.
Thus the C.S.L.O. is no more. And those who accused EN LUTTE! of wanting to “liquidate all mass work” because it was opposed to the continued existence of the C.S.L.O. and to the type of support which was practiced there, found themselves all at the same table to vote... for the dissolution of the C.S.L.O.
It was not EN LUTTE!’s objective to clarify all questions of Marxist-Leninist tactics at this Congress. We never thought it would be possible to come to an agreement on all essential questions. To tell the truth, we thought we would have to wage a hard political struggle just to have included on the agenda, the question of Marxist-Leninist tactics.
We are grateful to the comrades for having changed their point of view on this question. We also recognize that we had underestimated their capacity for self-criticism. But it is unfortunate, you will agree, that these changes in attitude occurred just before the congress, and for some people at the congress itself. It must also be recognized that the documents which served as preparation for the Congress, (principally the reviews and the Coordinating Committee’s text), in no way prepared anyone for’ such a situation. We thought, as these led us to believe, that the recognition of economism as the main deviation in our movement, and of the C.S.L.O. as a particularly flagrant form of this deviation, would be introduced in the course of the debates and not at the beginning. This, of course, changed the nature of the debates, from what we were expecting.
Nevertheless, the Congress was held, the C.S.L.O. has been recognized for it was, by the great majority of groups, that is: a haven of right opportunism in the Marxist-Leninist movement, and it has been dissolved. What remains to be seen now is the depth of this rectification initiated last September 13. It is of course impossible to analyse the implications of this rectification merely on the basis of verbal explanations, for this we must wait for the analyses that Marxist-Leninist groups will undoubtedly publish. However it is possible and necessary to identify the points on which we agree and the fundamental questions that remain to be clarified in order to insure that the rectification produces the best possible results.
It seems to us that the Marxist-Leninist groups which participated in the Congress, dissolving the C.S.L.O., share, in their great majority, the following points of view on the present tasks of communists and on the identification of the main deviation in our movement.
1. the principal goal of Marxist-Leninists at the present historical period in Canada is the creation of the communist Marxist-Leninist Party of the Canadian proletariat.
2. in the course of this period the central task of communists in order to achieve this goal is to “win over the vanguard of the proletariat to communism” (Lenin) in order to form the cadres and lay the basis of the future Party.
3. the principal means by which Marxist-Leninists will achieve this task of winning over the vanguard of the proletariat to communism, are communist propaganda and agitation among the masses, mainly the proletarian masses, and their struggles.
4. the main and decisive instrument in achieving these communist agitation and propaganda is a communist journal of propaganda, agitation and organization on a Canada-wide scale.
5. the condition for the proper carrying out of these tasks is the ideological, and then organizational, unification of Canadian Marxist-Leninists.
6. the economist trend (right opportunism) is the main deviation which is slowing down the development of our movement.
According to us, these six points summarize the essence upon which nearly all the groups present at the Congress agreed. As can be seen, this constitutes considerable progress on the road to the unity of Marxist-Leninists in Quebec.
First, let us say, that at the moment it is recognized that economism is the main deviation in the Marxist-Leninist movement, we must also recognize that this deviation touches more or less all aspects of our work. In other words we must recognize that it represents a constituted trend and not just a minor error in the course of work. Therefore, to try to rectify the line by attacking only a few of its aspects would be an error.
The problem of the deviation is not settled merely by voting the dissolution of the C.S.L.O. Of course the C.S.L.O. has been a particularly harmful concrete manifestation of economism, but the economist deviation extends well beyond the framework of support for workers’ struggles. We shall examine two problems which illustrate perfectly the questions on which Quebec Marxist-Leninists totally disagree. The examination of these problems will enable us to better understand the nature of the economist deviation in our ranks.
EN LUTTE! maintains that some comrades still have an incorrect conception of what is “mass line” and of the meaning of “doing mass work” in general, and in particular, at the present stage, that of the merger of Marxism-Leninism and of the workers’ movement. This incorrect conception is as follows.
Communists should carry out two types of agitation and two types of propaganda. The first and main type would be communist agitation and propaganda; it would have as its goal to win over to communism the vanguard of the proletariat. The other type of agitation and propaganda which, it is claimed, is secondary, and in which is included for example the support for workers’ struggles, communists would carry out in their non-communist organizations, on the basis of non-communist, but progressive, programs.
Therefore, according to the advocators of this conception, communists should on the one hand do communist work and on the other hand do non-communist work; and the latter would precisely be the type by which communists would do their true “mass work” – the only kind really based upon the immediate interests of the masses. What does this all mean? It seems to mean that communists should, at the same time, march in front of and tail the masses. This clearly appeared in the words of a comrade who said (more or less)
Ah: Come on! we can’t win over the masses on the basis of a communist program. Because if it was possible, we would be on the verge of an insurrection!
Because he has presented his idea in such a caricatured fashion, this comrade has admirably summed up the essence of the economist conceptions against which we are fighting. In less dramatic terms, this means that, according to this comrade, the merger of Marxism-Leninism and of the workers’ movement can only be realized on the eve of an insurrection. While waiting for this great day, communists should “light the fuse at both ends” at the head and at the rear; and when the sparks join, it will be the moment of the revolutionary explosion, of the insurrection. Thus, this is to say that the communists’ calls for revolutionary political struggle would only have true political bearing at the time of the insurrection, the latter being seen as the only time when the masses can be mobilized around a communist program.
The practical consequences of such a conception are that the tasks of communists are separated into two distinct categories: the “mass work” which would be non-communist by definition, since the masses are non-communist(!) and the “vanguard work” which would be achieved by communist propaganda and agitation and would be solely directed toward the advanced workers.
This conception turns the intervention of communists in economic struggles into an economist intervention, that is to say an intervention tailing the spontaneous struggles of the workers.
For EN LUTTE!, the expression “doing mass work” means and can only mean this: it is the work that communists carry out among the masses. Communist agitation and propaganda among workers is “doing mass work”. Communist propaganda must, at all times, have a mass character, that is to say to aim at the largest strata of the people and particularly, at this stage, the largest strata of the proletariat. All other ways of approaching the question lead either to sectarianism, that is to the isolation and the sterility of revolutionary activities, or else to “tailism”, that is to the lowering of revolutionary work to the level of reformism. We seem to be witnessing, in Quebec presently, a variation which, as strange as it may seem, consists in following these two incorrect avenues at the same time. Let’s see how things present themselves.
This distinct separation of the tasks of communists into two categories has direct consequences on the way of conceiving the link between the winning over of the vanguard of the proletariat to communism and the development of a communist leadership or, (which comes to the same thing) orientation among the workers. To well understand this problem it is necessary to recall a certain number of Marxist-Leninist principles.
The Marxist-Leninist Party of the proletariat is the leading body of the revolutionary political struggle of the proletariat and all of the labouring masses rallied to the vanguard class. Such a Party therefore is an organization that groups together the leaders of the struggle for socialism. It groups the most conscious elements of the working class and of the other strata of the people. A Marxist-Leninist communist Party, a vanguard party, exists only to the extent that it groups together such leaders; in other words such a party can only play its revolutionary role if it embodies practically and theoretically the revolutionary leadership of the proletariat and of the other strata of the labouring masses in their struggle against capitalism and imperialism.
Therefore, in a country where such a party does not exist, the first task of those who rally around the proletarian ideology, Marxism-Leninism, is to spread the theory of scientific socialism among the workers, to group together the vanguard elements of the proletariat on the basis of revolutionary ideology and to work with them in the formation of communist workers’ cadres, the basis of the future party.
In doing so, Marxist-Leninists who struggle to create the Party develop at the same time the communist leadership in the ranks of the workers’ movement, (though in a limited way in the beginning). For if we succeed in forming communist workers’ cadres and if these cadres come from the vanguard strata of the proletariat, it is clear that our activities have a bearing on the class as a whole. It is also clear that in doing so we work to develop a communist leadership in the struggles of the masses.
In fact, if the advanced workers assimilate Marxism-Leninism and join the ranks of our movement, they do not cease, well on the contrary, we say, for not only do they not cease being workers’ leaders devoted to the interests of their class and of all the exploited, but they become better leaders, better vanguard fighters, propagandists and organizers who will educate the class about their historic mission and the means of achieving it.
This is why we say that there is unity between the struggle to win over the vanguard of the proletariat to communism and the struggle for the development of a communist leadership in the struggles of the workers’ movement.
Here is how the economists present things: the principal task is to win over to communism the vanguard of the proletariat; the secondary task is to lead the masses’ struggles. This way of putting forth the problem in terms of principal and secondary tasks is incorrect. Of course, as Stalin says, during the first stage of the Party building, during which time the cadres of the future party are grouped together, the main aspect of the work of communists will not be to lead the masses’ struggles, but to win over the vanguard of the proletariat to communism. But this leadership exists from the beginning of the movement to merge Marxism-Leninism and the workers’ movement; only in the course of the first stage of Party building, as the communist forces are still weak, is this leadership necessarily limited. But it grows in proportion with the Marxist-Leninist movement’s capacity to achieve the winning over of the proletariat’s vanguard to communism.
Therefore, to speak of a principal task and of a secondary task is an incorrect way of presenting the problem. There is effectively a principal aspect and a secondary aspect, but these are not two distinct tasks by nature.
It is enough to quote Stalin to understand the deviations resulting from the crippled dialectics of those who, in practice, claim that communists should march at the head and at the rear of the spontaneous masses’ movement at the same time.
Our duty, the duty of social-democracy (of the Marxist-Leninist movement – editors note) is to break away the workers’ spontaneous movement from the trade-unionist trend and to direct it towards social-democracy (of communism – editors note). Our duty is to introduce socialist consciousness (which has been elaborated by Marx and Engels – Stalin’s note) in this movement and to unify the vanguard forces of the working class into a centralized Party. Our task is to always march at the head of the movement, to relentlessly struggle against all those enemies or “friends”, who oppose the carrying out of these tasks. (Stalin, Coup d’oeil rapide sur les divergences dans le Parti, Oeuvres, N.B.E. Paris, tome 1, p.95)
“Our task is to always march at the head of the movement” and not sometimes at the head and sometimes at the rear, as would the economists in our movement like us to believe. This is the fundamental conception that must guide Canadian Marxist-Leninists in their tactics. This is the fundamental principle of the tactical line.
The “mass line” is not the method to better march at the rear of the spontaneous workers’ movement; the mass line is a method of leadership and of knowledge in order to gather the correct ideas of the masses, in order to better march at the head of the spontaneous movement. “From the masses to go back to the masses” (Mao-Tse-Tung) is not a tactic; it is the dialectic materialist method in elaborating, applying and perfecting tactics in any given conditions, at different stages of the revolutionary movement’s development. The existence of right opportunism in our ranks comes from the fact that we haven’t waged a determined and consistent struggle in the past, against the bourgeois line in our ranks.
There is no doubt that since September 13th, with the dissolution of the C.S.L.O., the conditions of struggle for the unity of Quebec Marxist-Leninists have changed. The fact that the very great majority of groups has affirmed that the economist deviation (right opportunism) is the principal deviation in the Canadian Marxist-Leninist movement is in itself enough to conclude that there is an important change in our ranks. Thus, the dissolution of the C.S.L.O. is the first concrete act, at the scale of the Marxist-Leninist movement in Quebec, of a rectification which is initiated.
For EN LUTTE!, the dissolution of the C.S.L.O. marks the beginning of a new period for Quebec Marxist-Leninists. And until the contrary is proved, we think that the situation thus created will be a positive factor for the unification of our movement. Indeed, the defeat of the economist deviation, (of right opportunism) in our ranks is the essential condition for elaborating a correct political line and thereby building strong ideological unity among Canadian Marxist-Leninists.