The Fourth Conference of Marxist-Leninists was held in Montreal February 4.5, 1978.[1] This conference organized by the Canadian Marxist-Leninist Group IN STRUGGLE!, dealt with the tasks involved in rebuilding the Canadian proletarian Party: the struggle for the unity of Marxist-Leninists, the working out of the communist program and the rallying of the proletarian vanguard to communism.
The first, second and third conferences dealt with the struggle for unity, the path of the revolution in Canada and international questions.
The 1200 people who participated in this conference were confronted with the indisputable fact that the merger of Marxism-Leninism and the working-class movement is making progress in this country. Many friends and people sympathetic to Marxism-Leninism were able to see the determination and highly-developed class consciousness of workers, working-class women and welfare recipients becoming actually involved in the debates on rebuilding their party. They were thus able to verify in practice the demagogy and contempt hidden behind the attitudes of groups like the Canadian Communist League (Marxist-Leninist), which consider that line struggles are too complicated for the workers. They were also able to verify in practice the correctness of IN STRUGGLE!’s point of view, according to which open, honest debate in front of the masses is a matter of principle. As someone said in one of the many discussions during this conference, “The workers present here are not professors and students in overalls; they are communist workers.”
The Fourth Conference was also a success because it concluded the struggle waged against Bolshevik Union. Concretely, this resulted in the expulsion of this group of professional saboteurs. To the sustained applause of the participants, we put an end once and for all to the manoeuvres of this clique in our public conferences, thereby considerably improving the climate of discussions. This gesture ensured that the microphones were no longer monopolized by these low-down, political manipulators, and meant that workers were able to take the floor and speak.
The brochure we are publishing today includes the main speeches given during the conference, plus a section on the main questions raised and the answers given concerning the subjects debated.
[1]See the evaluation of this conference In the article, “The working class has been without a party too long, we’re going to build one and It’s going to be ours”, In IN STRUGGLE!, no.108 (vol.5, no.13), Feb. 16, 1978, p.14-15.