First Published: The Forge, Vol. 2, No. 20 October 28-November 10, 1977
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
The leadership of In Struggle is feeling increasingly exposed. In the latest issue of their paper, no. 100, they try desperately to patch up their old, worn costume. To hide their revisionist line, they are surpassing themselves in demagogic, pirouettes, twists and turns, brand new declarations and out-and-out lies about the League. But it’s by their practice that we judge whether a group is Marxist-Leninist or not – not by high-sounding declarations. Using this measure. IS’s revisionism is clear as a bell.
The leadership of IS is panicking like a crab in boiling water. As the “communist” mask it assumed falls apart, it is forced to perfect its disguise in order to continue to deceive the masses and its own members.
No. 100 of its paper is devoted to a vast makeup job. Under the logo one can now read that the paper is “The central organ of the Marxist-Leninist group In Struggle”.
But that’s not all, IS has better disguises. It now affirms, “That is why the Canadian bourgeoisie is the principal enemy of the proletarian revolution in Canada.” (IS’s emphasis, In Struggle, no. 100, p. 13) As if this had always been the group’s position. If IS feels the need to make this affirmation it’s because it was severely shaken when we denounced it as a revisionist group.
Only a short two months, ago, in August, 1977, IS said, “The Canadian revolution has two principal enemies: the Canadian bourgeoisie (an imperialist and monopolist bourgeoisie) and American imperialism...” (Le groupe marxiste-leniniste En Lutte, P.11, our translation).
Here are two different positions, but still the same hypocrisy, the same deceit, the same opportunism.
In their response to the League, the leadership of IS shouts from the roof tops their “fierce opposition” to the Canadian bourgeoisie... And how does it react to the 3,500 layoffs at Inco, one of the most brutal attacks of the Canadian bourgeoisie against the working class? By complete silence. That’s how IS defends the interests of the Canadian working class.
Facts like the above, and the practice of IS, constantly reveal its revisionist line, its line of collaboration with the bourgeoisie and their representatives in the workers’ movement.
It has become their trademark. IS changes its positions the way it would a shirt. Another example is its attitude towards social imperialism. For months, IS has practically liquidated the denunciation of social-imperialism in the pages of its paper.
Suddenly, like magic following our criticisms, Issue No. 100 has two articles on the USSR, one stating that the new constitution is “capitalist from one end to the other”. What a coincidence!
In addition IS is posing as the great defender of the socialist countries. Let’s look at just how it defends them. First of all it still refuses to take a position on the Eleventh Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and it won’t breathe a word on the “gang of four” on the pretext that the situation is “too complex” and that it is an “internal affair” of China.
But there is nothing complex about it. The CPC thoroughly explained the situation and presented it clearly for all the world to see.
Also, IS has done nothing in practice to support the socialist countries like Albania and China. In the past several months its paper has been practically silent on this subject. In its super-duper 100th issue there is not one word on the anniversary of the Party of Labour of Albania, and there has only been one article on China all summer. And even that was only to save face and pass of its revisionist line on the international situation, since the article did not include a single word on the CPC.
In Toronto IS’s economism at Consumer Glass reveals once again the practical results of IS’s revisionist line. IS began by claiming they could mobilize support from Stelco and Ford plants only to arrive on the picket line later with two contacts and three members of the counter-revolutionary Bolshevik Union.
IS only went to Consumer Glass to boost their image. They began to organise a demonstration of support on the 14th without even telling the workers, and tried to co-operate with the union bureaucrats while hiding the fact that they were communists. Is it any wonder that hardly no one showed up on the 14th at their “support dance”?
And to top it off when the union president called police to remove the communists from a massive picket that the League had organised guess what IS did? While the League waged the struggle, exposed the police and bureaucrats and forced them to leave, IS scurried off at the first sign of a struggle.
Is it any wonder they haven’t dared show their faces on the picket line since?
IS has just given us another fine example, in the daycare movement, of how it sabotages struggles. Lafontaine Daycare Centre in Montreal is in danger of losing its quarters shortly. The parents decided to take part in the struggle for free space in the schools. Confronted with this determination, what position did IS take? It wrote up and circulated a text with three “good reasons” for... not fighting!
1. “If we fightback we risk repression” In support of this edifying argument IS reminds them of the charges laid against the Robin Hood workers; this was to discourage anyone who “dares” attack an enemy as powerful as the bourgeoisie!
2. “The struggle for daycare is secondary compared to the struggle of workers against capital”. Of course, for IS this is a good enough reason to ignore the struggle and let our daycare centres get kicked out of their quarters.
3. Finally, “Even if the centre is forced to close down for good, we will have raised people’s consciousness”. So let’s not fight; we can be conscious instead, protected by the good advice of IS who warns that the bourgeois state is too strong and too repressive for us to fight it!
This saboteur’s “education” will be swept away by the masses with no second thought. They are not at all interested in hearing that there is nothing to be done. What they want is to learn how to organize against’ repression and how to reinforce their unity to win their rights and defeat the enemy. Practice has shown that when IS opens its mouth, it’s the bourgeoisie that speaks.
The coat of red paint IS is trying so desperately to cover itself with exposes its revisionist degeneration even more.
IS’s reaction is typically opportunist. A communist group recognizes its errors, analyzes them profoundly to get to the root of them in order to correct them. IS instead panics and rushes to try to camouflage a few of them in order to pass off its revisionist line.