Determining the path of the revolution in a given country, in a given period, constitutes a major and decisive factor in the formulation of the political line of the proletarian revolutionary party. This point cannot be overemphasized now that the struggle to build the party is bound to develop considerably.
Without a clear strategic line, no Marxist-Leninist group or organization will be able to play a significant role in the development of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat and of the people, because it is on the foundation of this strategic line that correct tactics can be defined.
The strategic line consists essentially in pointing out the principal contradiction(s) for a given period it identifies the main enemies of the people, the motive forces of the revolution, and their allies amongst the people. It therefore indicates the path of the revolution, i.e., the nature of the struggle to be waged in order to radically transform the social conditions, which means in our era the abolition of capitalist exploitation, and the undertaking of the construction of socialism.
The Albanian comrades define the strategic line as follows:
“As it draws up its strategic line, the working-class party decides upon its aim and its strategic tasks, specifies the main enemy and the motive forces of the revolution, and the internal and external allies of the working class for a given historical period”.[19]
They write further:
“The political line of the Party was embodied in the political tasks which the Meeting of the Communist Groups (this conference was held September 8 – 14, 1941, as the Communist Party of Albania was founded – In Struggle!’s note) worked out. The strategic aim of the Party for the historical period which the country was passing through was expressed in these terms:
“To fight for the national independence of the Albanian people and for a people’s democratic government in an Albania free from fascism.
“This strategic objective was dictated by the basic antagonistic contradiction existing at the time in Albania which demanded an urgent solution in order to clear the way for national, social, economic and cultural development, namely, the contradiction between the people and the fascist invaders. Another contradiction existed also between the masses of the people and the exploiting classes, but at that time this was of second importance. Under the concrete conditions, this contradiction could not be solved apart from the primary antagonistic contradiction because the landlords, chieftans and the reactionary bourgeoisie constituted the social support of the invaders in our country. The interests of the principal exploiting classes of the country were closely bound to those of the fascist invaders. Therefore, the attainment of the strategic objective of the Party could not but affect the interests of these classes, of these tools of the foreign enslavers as well.”[20]
The Vietnamese comrades present the matter as follows:
“In the light of Marxism-Leninism, our Party, as soon as it came into existence, had a clear and complete conception of the necessary path of development of the Vietnamese revolution. In its Political Theses of 1930, it pointed out that the Vietnamese revolution must go through two stages: first, the national democratic revolution, then a direct passage to socialist revolution, bypassing the stage of capitalist development, the ultimate aim of the Party being the realization of communism. Guided by this programme, the Party has worked out a concrete line for each period and led the people through successive stages beset with difficulties, hardships and complexities, to the present glorious triumph.”[21]
As for the Chinese comrades, they defined their strategic line in 1939 in this manner:
“Imperialism and the feudal landlord class being the chief enemies of the Chinese revolution at this stage, what are the present tasks of the revolution?
“Unquestionably, the main tasks are to strike at these two enemies, to carry out a national revolution to overthrow foreign imperialist oppression and a democratic revolution to overthrow feudal landlord oppression, the primary and foremost task being the national revolution to overthrow imperialism.
“These two tasks are interrelated. Unless imperialist rule is overthrown, the rule of the feudal landlord class cannot be terminated, as imperialism is its main support. Conversely, unless help is given to the peasants in their struggle to overthrow the feudal landlord class, it will be impossible to build powerful revolutionary contingents to overthrow imperialist rule, because the feudal landlord class is the main social base of imperialist rule in China and the peasantry is the main force in the Chinese revolution. Therefore the two fundamental tasks, the national revolution and the democratic revolution, are at once distinct and united.”[22]
Finally, it will be recalled that from its birth to the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Bolshevik Party led the struggle with a twofold strategic objective, a democratic one and a socialist one.
Thus Lenin wrote in 1897:
“The object of the practical activities of the Social-Democrats is, as is well known, to lead the class struggle of the proletariat and to organise that struggle in both its manifestations: socialist [the fight against the capitalist class aimed at destroying the class system and organising socialist society], and democratic [the fight against absolutism aimed at winning political liberty in Russia and democratising the political and social system of Russia]. We said as is well known. And indeed, from the very moment they appeared as a separate social-revolutionary trend, the Russian Social-Democrats have always quite definitely indicated this object of their activities, have always emphasised the dual manifestation and content of the class struggle of the proletariat and have always insisted on the inseparable connection between their socialist and democratic tasks – a connection clearly expressed in the name they have adopted.”[23]
Canada, including Quebec, is an advanced capitalist society where the political regime is one of ”bourgeois democracy”, i.e., democracy for the capitalists, who exercise their dictatorship over the proletariat and the toiling masses.
The dominant classes in Canada, including Quebec, are first of all the Canadian bourgeoisie, a primarily banking bourgeoisie who channel the savings of Canadians towards the great (mostly American) monopolies, and secondly its ally and master, the American imperialist bourgeoisie, which owns, or at least controls, the greatest part of the key sectors of the Canadian economy.
While the Canadian people as a whole have an objective interest in the overthrow of imperialist domination and capitalist exploitation, the proletariat alone is “revolutionary to the very end”. The working-class (or proletariat) is the only class among the labouring masses to be situated in an essentially antagonistic relationship with the bourgeoisie. It is, therefore, the only one able to lead the revolution through to the end. Furthermore, in a country such as Canada, not only is the proletariat the force that must lead the revolution, it is also the main revolutionary force, numerically the most important.
Therefore the principal contradiction in Canada, including Quebec, is between the Canadian proletariat, on the one hand, and the Canadian bourgeoisie and American imperialism, on the other hand.
The Canadian proletariat has two main enemies: the Canadian bourgeoisie, that wields state power over the toiling masses for its own benefit, and American imperialism, which, through its economic power, its control over the major part of industry, of commerce and even of finance, exercises its hegemony over the Canadian bourgeoisie.
In fact, the more the power of American imperialism grows, the more its hegemony over Canada increases, the less the distinctions between its interests and those of the dominant sections of the Canadian bourgeoisie can be clearly made. So much so that, in a general way, it can be said that the interests of American imperialism and those of the Canadian bourgeoisie are the same. This of course does not exclude diverse contradictions, sometimes numerous and important, such as are found, for that matter, within all bourgeoisies.
Even if at this moment the Ottawa government toys with the idea of autonomy with respect to the American empire, we should not forget that American imperialism and the Canadian bourgeoisie share the same fundamental interest: the capitalist exploitation of the Canadian proletariat. Besides, these two bourgeoisies are closely associated, economically, politically and militarily, in the capitalist exploitation of numerous other regions of the world.
For this reason, as well as because of its own activities in several countries, including Haiti, Brazil and many others, the Canadian bourgeoisie should be classified among the imperialist powers.
The nature of the relationship between the Canadian bourgeoisie and American imperialism is such that the Canadian proletariat cannot attack the former without at the same time attacking the latter. The socialist revolution (need it be recalled?) consists fundamentally in the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, regardless of whether it is domestic or foreign. Therefore one cannot anticipate a real development in the struggle for socialism in Canada without a direct challenge to private ownership of the means of production, be it American or Canadian.
The situation is thus comparable (not to be confused with identical or similar) to that of China in 1939, when Mao Tse-tung wrote – in the work quoted above:
“Unless imperialist rule is overthrown, the rule of the feudal landlord class cannot be terminated, because imperialism is its main support. Conversely... because the feudal landlord class is the main social base of imperialist rule in China...”
“Comparable”, we said, not “similar”. As a matter of fact, contrary to what was happening in China in 1939, the Canadian people are not the victim of national oppression on the part of American Imperialism. Imperialist domination such as is exercised today upon the industrialized countries, does not generally involve, not in Canada in any case, national oppression, for the industrialized countries in question had reached the stage of bourgeois democracy before the penetration of American imperialism in these countries and this penetration was then accomplished peacefully, contrary to what happened in the Third World.
In other words, Canada is not a colony of the United States, any more than Quebec is a colony of Canada, as will be seen further on.
This being understood, it must nevertheless be borne in mind that American imperialism ultimately constitutes the main force among the enemies of the proletariat and the working masses of Canada, including Quebec, even if the exercise of political power falls directly here to the Canadian bourgeoisie. It is therefore the latter that the proletariat will have to attack first in its struggle for political (state) power, and this will remain true as long as the Canadian bourgeoisie retains state power. If the socialist revolution consists of expropriating the means of production from the capitalist owners, it cannot fulfill this task other than by the conquest of political power.
Nowhere has the proletariat been the only class to wage the struggle for socialism, for socialism is the only road to real social progress not only for the working class, but also for the entire people. So, whether it be in Russia, China, Vietnam, Albania or in Korea, in all these countries, though the proletariat has played the leading role in the revolutionary struggle, it has everywhere gained the support of the broad masses of the people, particularly of the peasantry, which often provided the largest contingents of revolutionaries.
In Canada, it is with the petit bourgeoisie, especially its lower strata, that the proletariat must first reckon. Indeed these social strata, i.e., clerks, office workers, junior civil servants, teachers, small farmers and shopkeepers, housekeepers, a substantial proportion of students, manual workers etc., are hard hit by the contradictions of capitalism, the current development of which they must, to a large extent, bear the expense. Capitalism either threatens their very social existence, or it brings about a marked deterioration in their living conditions.
This being so, it is certain that these social strata are bound to constitute a considerable force in support of the revolutionary movement led by the proletariat, a force that may even prove decisive in certain conditions, not only because of their increasing number but also because of the indispensable role played by some important sections of these strata in the very reproduction of the capitalist mode of production.
Rallying all the strata of the people to the same revolutionary struggle against bourgeois power and imperialist domination will therefore be an important task of the Canadian proletariat. More than just supporting other popular masses, it is possibly alliances with other political organizations to which the working class will eventually have recourse. But there can be no alliance except between two or several organizations. Before considering any alliance, the proletariat will therefore have to give itself a class party, a revolutionary party. The revolutionary party of the working-class is the only force capable of rallying, on a correct political basis, the whole of the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist masses and, as far as the struggle in Quebec is concerned, the masses struggling against national oppression.
If, in the present era in Canada, the principal contradiction to be resolved is that between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, it is certainly not the only one. Precisely, it is principal in that its solution is the necessary condition for the solution of all other contradictions in a revolutionary perspective, a perspective of true social progress. Among all secondary contradictions in Canada, the Quebec national question is without doubt the most important one at this time.
Quebec indeed constitutes a nation. It combines all the characteristics of a nation as formulated by Stalin in Marxism and the National Question (1913), i.e., one’s own history and territory, common interests, language and culture, and a national consciousness.[24]
Not only does Quebec constitute a nation, but it is also an oppressed nation. For more than a century, Quebec has been an integral part of Canada resulting from the conquest of New France by the British Empire and of all the wars and intrigues of the colonialists and the imperialists in the 19th century.
Though an oppressed nation, Quebec is not a colony. The Canadian bourgeoisie has in fact integrated Quebecois elements into itself, on the one hand, and on the other hand, it has permitted the establishment of bourgeois democratic forms, including parliament, in Quebec as well as in the rest of Canada.
Nevertheless, national oppression exists, and manifests itself in various ways. The economy of Quebec still bears marks of the preponderant position held by the English-Canadian bourgeoisie in the course of history, on the one hand, and on the other hand, certain democratic rights, especially the national language and culture of the Quebecois, are constantly flouted in practice despite various laws supposedly intended to protect them. The workers are those who suffer most often and most deeply from this situation, their places of work are doubly hostile to them. They are submitted daily to capitalist forms of management, and also those who direct and control their activities do so in a language (English) that remains foreign to them.
It is in light of the undeniable reality of national oppression on the one hand, and of the rise of the workers’ struggles, on the other hand, that one must analyse the political situation in Quebec during the last few years, characterized by that form of social-democratic nationalism found in other countries under the yoke of imperialism.
The wedding of social-democratic ideology to bourgeois nationalism in Quebec assumes a special importance owing to the incontestable national domination of the Quebec people within the Canadian federal state, which is a state of bourgeois dictatorship.
For the petit bourgeoisie, national independence would in effect be a means to curb, if not stop, the process of its own withering away. At this present historical stage in Quebec three factors contribute to the persistence of the nationalist illusion.
Firstly, the very real national oppression suffered by the Quebec people, to the extent that the petit bourgeoisie champions “national” values, cannot but attract momentarily the sympathy of important sections of the labouring masses, especially among the wage-earning non-proletarian masses, which are increasing at this stage of monopoly capitalism.
Second, the increasing role of the state in the economy under monopoly capitalism helps reinforce the illusion that the takeover of the state (of an unchanged state, therefore still bourgeois) by the “nationalists” would mean taking in hand the main lever of national emancipation. In other words, instead of being the second-hand watchdogs of imperialist economic activities in Quebec, the nationalist sections of the Quebec bourgeoisie aspire to become the main watchdogs. The management of a so-called “national” state would secure this new status which they so much long for.
Third, the social democratic cover contributes to the nationalist/opportunist deceit. By claiming that they want to “civilize capitalism”, the social-democrats try to make the working people believe that class antagonisms can be toned down to the point of disappearing within the framework of capitalism reordered “in accordance with the interests of the people”. This is the role played by such expressions as: “democratic socialism”, “peaceful transition to socialism”, “revolution within the law”, “a typically Quebecois socialism”, etc. Bourassa himself speaks of a “typically Quebec” socialism, built in the framework of law and order. He too flares up at “imported” ideologies and foreign “schemes” such as Marxism, Maoism and so on. According to him, too, the specific character of socialism in Quebec is that it can be built only with the support and assistance of “private enterprise” (sic). Like in Chile, undoubtedly! Reformism and chauvinism, as can be seen, are characteristic features of the bourgeoisie, whether nationalist, social-democrat or simply liberal.
But the path of the nationalists, be it connected with the “progressivism” of the social-democrats, remains a bourgeois path. As Canada is a bourgeois-democratic society, there can be no question of a national liberation struggle in Quebec. National liberation struggles aim at establishing democracy in countries held by colonialists or imperialists who have appropriated the direction of the state in contempt of all bourgeois-democratic rights.
A highly industrialized region of the world where the proletariat constitutes the main class within the labouring masses, Quebec, like the rest of Canada, can experience genuine social transformations only through the establishment of socialism. On the other hand, it is not certain at all (everything points to the contrary) that political independence in Quebec would constitute a step forward for the proletariat. There is every indication that, divided by the national question, the proletariat of Canada would be weaker in the face of capitalism and imperialism. When all is said and done, the independence of Quebec would only suit the purpose of a thin stratum of the Quebec bourgeoisie entering into direct competition with the ruling Canadian bourgeoisie.
Lenin has quite clearly outlined the principles one should rely on in taking a correct position on the national question, especially in The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-determination [Theses], written in 1916.[25]
The fundamental principle of Leninism on this question is the affirmation of the right of nations to self-determination. Not in a chauvinistic or bourgeois spirit, but because at the stage of imperialism, colonialism and national oppression are the product of imperialist nations. To recognize the right of nations to decide their own fate is to condemn the domination of exploiting nations over exploited nations. It is also to support the struggle for democratic rights, as long as socialism has not been allowed to transcend this historical stage, where the winning of democratic rights constitutes a factor of social progress.
It is in light of the same principles that we must analyze the question of the native peoples (Indians and Inuit), whose living conditions are much more difficult than those of the Quebecois and whose historical rights are constantly flouted as though they never existed. The current struggles of these national minorities, which are the continuation of their stubborn resistance to the invasion of their land and the plunder of their resources by European colonialists in past centuries, must be regarded as an integral part of the struggle of the masses of the people against capitalism and imperialism, with the difference that they involve the] pursuit of specific democratic rights.
However, as Stalin as well as Lenin pointed out, what is central and decisive at the present historical stage, is neither the national struggle nor any struggle for democratic rights, but the struggle of the proletariat for socialism.
This is why the proletariat and the masses of the people in Quebec as well as among the Indian and Inuit minorities, have nothing to gain by breaking off from the Canadian proletariat as a whole and following in the bourgeois nationalists’ wake. The latter do not share the same strategic objective: they do not struggle in order to abolish capitalist exploitation. On the contrary, they want to reap from that exploitation, a bigger profit for themselves.
However, this should not lead us to the error of denying the right of self-determination of the Quebec nation and of the Indian and Inuit minorities. The objectives of the Canadian revolutionary proletarian struggle must include this one: in a socialist Canada the Quebec nation and the national minorities will be free to secede or to achieve the degree of autonomy they deem desirable.
Canadian capitalist society exhibits numerous secondary contradictions, i.e., contradictions whose solution depends on the solution of the principal one. However, nothing can be taken for granted in matters of revolutionary change. It would be completely erroneous to think that the overthrow of the bourgeoisie will automatically solve all other contradictions.
Revolution is the conscious work of the masses, and no contradictions can be solved without a consistent struggle for this end; this applies equally to the oppression of women.
Undoubtedly, we Marxist-Leninists must be grateful to the feminists for having compelled us, so to speak, through the extremist and even absurd character of some of their proposals, to reconsider this fundamental question, which revisionism has finally emptied of its revolutionary content.
During the last few years women have indeed considerably strengthened their determination to free themselves from the age-long domination of which they are the victims. It is a universal movement, it is a positive movement. Nevertheless, in the capitalist countries, bourgeois ideology soon undertook to corrupt it, causing many feminist groups to regard their struggle as a battle against what they call “male power”.
Because the oppression of women is historically found under diverse modes of production, some feminists have been led to think that the struggle of women is independent of the struggle for socialism, independent, more exactly, of the capitalist mode of production and its eventual disappearance.
Other feminists, basing themselves on the two-fold exploitation of which women are the victims (exploitation by capital and by “males”) conclude that women constitute the leading force of the revolution. Are not women more numerous than workers?
Marxist-Leninists would be enormously mistaken to disassociate themselves from the struggle against the oppression of women because of the extremist and confused talk of certain feminist groups. The oppression of women is no less real than the oppression of certain nations; all in all, it concerns many more individuals than national oppression. Therefore, it requires, on the part of any genuine revolutionary organization, immediate and sustained attention. As Lenin says:
“The building of socialism will begin only when we have achieved the complete equality of women.”[27]
At the same time, however, Lenin clearly saw that the liberation of women cannot be realized except by socialist revolution:
“The theses must emphasise strongly that true emancipation of women is not possible except through communism. You must stress the unbreakable link between woman’s human and social position and the private ownership of the means of production. This will draw a strong, ineradicable line against the bourgeois movement for the ’emancipation of women’. This will also give us a basis for examining the woman question as part of the social, working-class question, and to bind it firmly with the proletarian class struggle and the revolution. The communist women’s movement itself must be a mass movement, a part of the general mass movement; and not only of the proletarians, but of all the exploited and oppressed, of all victims of capitalism or of the dominant class. Therein, too, lies the significance of the women’s movement for the class struggle of the proletariat and its historic mission, the creation of a communist society.”[28]
This is exactly the same perspective that is found in Mao when he declares:
“Women comprise one half of the population. The economic status of working women and the fact of their being specially oppressed prove not only that women urgently need revolution but also that they are a decisive force in the success or failure of the revolution.”[29]
Among the masses of the people bound to rally to the proletariat and to its party, the masses of women rank among and are undoubtedly the most important elements. In order to rally them, the party must not only recognize that women suffer from many forms of oppression which are specific to them, but must also lead the struggle on this terrain, must prompt communist women and men to support the just demands of women, and see to it that the woman question is posed and correctly posed at all levels of its organization.
The oppression of women constitutes a secondary, but still very important, contradiction in capitalist society. Its solution depends on socialism just as socialism depends on the liberation of women.
Numerous other secondary contradictions within our Canadian society could be mentioned, from the hopeless situation of the majority of farmers, to the thousands of people either unemployed or on welfare who owe their situation to this ”society of abundance”!
Let it suffice for the moment to recall that the socialist revolution is concerned with all oppressed classes and social strata and that consequently no popular struggle should leave Communists indifferent.
The victory of the proletariat will not result from the spontaneous collapse of capitalism, but rather from the proletariat’s own capacity to correctly apply revolutionary strategy. The first element of this strategy is its instrument of leadership, the proletarian party. Without its organization of political leadership, the proletariat would ultimately remain powerless against the bourgeoisie and its essentially dictatorial and repressive state.
In any revolutionary struggle, the Party is the principal organ, not because it wages all struggles, nor because it embodies all mass organizations, but mainly because it offers leadership to all struggles and to all organizations, a leadership totally aimed at the seizure of power.
Socialism, in the last analysis, is the situation that results from the resolution of all social contradictions characterizing the capitalist mode of production. These contradictions are numerous, varied and of differing importance. As Lenin wrote in 1916:
“The socialist revolution is not one single act, not one single battle on a single front, but a whole epoch of intensified class conflicts, a long series of battles on all fronts, i.e. on all economic and political problems, which can culminate only in the expropriation of the bourgeoisie.”[30]
Just as the socialist revolution will result from the resolution of many contradictions, one of which is principal and the others secondary, so the battles necessary for the revolution will be fought by numerous organizations, one leading and the others under its leadership.
Certainly, Stalin has best systematized and sythesized the characteristics of the modern revolutionary party. He has defined it in his work, Foundations of Leninism, as follows:
“The Party is
1) “the vanguard detachment of the working class.” It musters the best elements of the working class and is armed with the revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism;
2) “the organized detachment of the working class.” It is the unique system of organizations, cells, .committees, instruments, etc. which comprise it; it is their centralized system. It applies democratic centralism, centralism (according to Mao Tse-tung) consisting in “concentrating correct ideas” and democratic centralism leading to combine “discipline and freedom” and to democratic will”;
3) “the supreme form of the class organization of the proletariat.” Among the many organizations of the proletariat and of the masses, the party is the most developed, the most advanced, the one assembling the best elements of the class; that is why the party can hope to exercise leadership over all the other organizations;
4) “the instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” The party is not an end in itself; it derives its only meaning from the struggle for socialism, from the power of the working class over all the other classes until classes themselves are abolished.
5) In order to be so, the party must present a “unity of will incompatible with the existence of factions”. It does not exclude the ideological struggle; on the contrary, it cannot succeed in establishing an ”iron discipline” within its ranks except by relying on the “voluntary” adhesion of its members to its decisions. Nevertheless, once the decisions are taken, “unity of action” is indispensible.
6) Finally, the party “becomes stronger by purging itself of its opportunist elements.” The “two line struggle” is constant within the party in that it concentrates the contradictions of bourgeois society where the proletarian line and the reformist or bourgeois line can be found. The ranks of the party must be purged of the bourgeois and opportunist elements.”[31]
Now when the struggle for the unification of Marxist-Leninists really begins, it is of prime importance to recall these principles. The struggle between the two lines is permanent within the Marxist-Leninist movement, whether unified or not. It bears, among other things, on the question of the party. If the representatives of the bourgeois line should prevail today, the building of the party and consequently the victory of the revolution itself would be in jeopardy.
It is the task of the proletarian party, once created, to develop the strategy and the tactics of the revolutionary struggle; thus it will really assume its leadership function. Being the organized vanguard of the proletariat, armed with Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tse-tung thought, it is in the last analysis through the quality of its ties to the masses that the party will be able to lead them correctly in accordance with the principle: “from the masses to the masses.” For, as Mao Tse-tung says: “the people, and the people alone, are the motive force, the creator of world history.”
It is Marxism-Leninism that provides the analytic instruments enabling us to chart the general path of the revolution at a given historical stage. But Communists are not prophets: they cannot foresee all the turns and curves the revolutionary mass movement will follow. One thing though is certain: the strategic objective of the Canadian proletariat is, and will always remain, the socialist revolution, the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the destruction of capitalism, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in order to build socialism and head towards communism.
Contradictions however, sometimes change in a qualitative way in a given country, and the revolution has to take this into account. As mere examples, one can think of two hypotheses: firstly, that the bourgeois nationalist movement rises to such a point in Quebec that the Canadian state military occupies the territory of Quebec. In this case, the proletariat should, in Quebec, rally to itself all progressive and patriotic forces in order to struggle against the occupiers; in the rest of Canada, it should support the Quebecois national struggle, thus intensifying its own struggle against the Canadian bourgeoisie, its principal enemy.
The second hypothesis is that the contradictions between American imperialism and the Canadian bourgeoisie grow to such proportions that American state power intervenes directly in Canadian politics, up to and including occupation. In this case, the Canadian proletariat should lead all the progressive and patriotic forces of Canada in the struggle against imperialism. By so doing, the proletariat would correctly carry on its fundamental struggle against capitalist exploitation, of which imperialism would then be the principal support.
So much for the broad outlines of the path of the Canadian revolution. It rests with the proletariat to lead the struggle against the Canadian bourgeoisie, holder of political power, and against its ally, American imperialism, which holds most of the economic power and thereby exercises a decisive influence on current Canadian politics.
The outcome of this struggle, in which larger and larger sections of the working masses will participate (especially those which are hardest hit by imperialist domination) cannot be anything other than the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat with the object of building socialism. Socialism, the path leading to communism, is the only possible objective of the proletariat and of the people in an advanced capitalist society such as Canada. It is the only path of social progress.
The role of the proletarian party is decisive in the phase of the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, as well as in the phase of socialist construction. But, once we have affirmed the historical necessity of the party, we must bear in mind that the consciousness of its necessity in M-L militants is not sufficient to justify its proclamation. The struggle for the party, the building of the party, requires a certain period of time during which a Marxist-Leninist organization struggles with the objective of realizing all the essential features of the Party; only when it has gone through this qualitative transformation will it be entitled to proclaim itself a party, and only then will this proclamation actually represent a step forward in the revolutionary struggle.
[19] Ndreci Plasari, The strategy and tactics of the Albanian Communist Party during the national liberation war, Albania Today, (French edition), No. 3 (10), May-June 1973, p. 12.
[20] History of the Party of Labour of Albania, Tirana, Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies – authorized by the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania, 1971, pp. 92-3.
[21] Le Duan, The Vietnamese Revolution: Fundamental Problems, Essential Tasks, Hanoi, Foreign Language Publishing House, 1970, p. 21.
[22] Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, FLP, Peking, 1965, Vol. 2.
[23] The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats [1897], collected Works, Moscow, 1972, Vol. 2, p. 328.
[24] Joseph Stalin, Marxism and the National Question, Moscow, FLPH, 1954.
[25] Lenin on the National and Colonial Questions, FLP, Peking, 1970, pp. 1-20.
[26] On the Emancipation of Women, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1965, p. 110.
[27] ibid., p. 69.
[28] ibid., p. 110.
[29] Peking Review, No. 10, March 8, 1974, p. 14.
[30] Lenin on the National and Colonial Questions, FLP, Peking, 1970, p.2.
[31] Foundations of Leninism, Peking, FLP, 1970, cf. chapter 8 – The Party, pp. 101-117.