Statement of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) Addressed to the First Conference of Unity of the BC Marxist-Leninists Held in Vancouver on November 4, 1972.
You are meeting today to form a new Marxist Leninist Centre in Vancouver and in BC. This is excellent news. We warmly hail this news and wish you every success in the course of the Conference and afterwards. Please accept our revolutionary greetings.
There have been many occasions in the past, when anti-imperialists and Marxist-Leninists got together in Vancouver. After all the meetings the organisation always moved forward. This occasion is similar in many ways to the conferences held in 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1972 but there is a great deal of difference. This is a conference to establish a New Marxist-Leninist Centre. All the previous conferences dealt only with the question of either having a meeting to formalise our organisation in order to provide a certain amount of leadership to the revolutionary youth and students, or, a meeting to open a branch of the Party here. None of the meetings before took up as the first item on their agenda the building of a Marxist-Leninist Centre which provides direction to all the work in BC under the leadership of the Central Committee of the Party. This aspect makes this Conference entirely different from all the other conferences. The delegates attending this Conference as well as the leadership of the Conference Committee come from different historical experiences and tendencies and through their own revolutionary experience have come forward to build one Marxist-Leninist Centre in BC. This is the second aspect which makes this Conference entirely different from all the other conferences. Thirdly, the delegates attending the conference are extremely conscious of the Necessity to Unite for the Sake of Revolution which was never the guiding theme of the other previous conferences. Lastly, this Conference is being held under the direction of the Party. This direction is part and parcel of the over-all general direction of the revolutionary work in Canada and Quebec. In this respect too, our Conference is different because it does not.suffer from localism – of regionalism but rather is the extension and development of the national task of Party building. These four aspects give this Conference entirely different tasks and responsibility from all other conferences, the foremost of which is to establish The New Marxist-Leninist Centre in BC, a task never before taken up, let alone accomplished. The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) considers this Conference of great historical significance and a turning point in the communist movement in Canada and Quebec. We are certain that all the delegates will contribute towards making this Conference a victorious new trend which will be followed in all the other cities and regions in Canada and Quebec.
In building the New Marxist-Leninist Centre, various comrades and friends raise the question: What is so new about it? They are raising this question because they mistakenly consider this Conference just another conference. They are suffering from a certain amount of subjectivism and one-sidedness and reflect a poor grasp of and inability to apply the dialectical and historical materialist method. These comrades and friends look only at the conference aspect, which means only the form and not the content. Not only do they not look at the content but they also ignore the necessity of the emergence and the historical origin of the content. What is new is a question of fundamental importance in Canada and Quebec! What attitude we take towards it decides the extent and seriousness of our involvement in revolution. What is new in Canada and Quebec is not mystical but very clear: Marxism-Leninism is new in Canada and Quebec! Revisionists reneged from all the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism, depriving the proletarians of the leading theory of Marxism-Leninism and of their Party. Revisionists thought that the day would never come when a force would emerge in Canada and Quebec which re-enunciates the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism and builds a proletarian party based on them. They, in their reactionary arrogance, thought that they could monopolise and control everything on the proletarian front and if anything was to take place it had to have received their approval first. But revisionists, like reactionaries of various colours, are blind to the developments taking place in society. They don’t believe that class struggle is absolute, it necessarly emerges against the decadent forces and this is independent of man’s will. Class struggle does not require permission from anyone to take place. Objective and acute class struggle on all sorts of questions has taken place amongst the revolutionary people over the past decade. What was new in that class struggle? The new was the honesty and sincerity with which revolutionary people participated in that struggle. They practiced what they upheld in theory, and smashed the revisionist theory of saying one thing and doing another, i.e., the theory and outlook of the exploiting classes. By constantly struggling against and vigorously opposing the revisionist theory and practice, the revolutionary people re-enunciated the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism. This is new. And where did this new fall from? Who were the spokesmen and representatives of the new. This new did not fall from the skies but originated from the basic and irreconcilable desire of the masses for revolution and from the thousands upon thousands of revolutionary youth and students who entered the arena of class struggle and became their representatives. The youth and student revolutionary mass movement was new. This glorious movement irresistibly brought forth large-scale reenunciation of various outlooks and theories. From anarchism to trotskyism to revisionism, astrology, mysticism and the sophistry of the slave owing class – pleasure seeking, hedonism and copping-out: you name it and the capitalists brought it to the fore to hinder the growth and development of the revolutionary youth and student movement and to mislead it. It is no wonder that the opponents of these backwards ideas came up with such fury and style and with the energy of a million suns to burn to the core the festering outlooks, egos and systems of the exploiting classes.
Comrades: In Canada and Quebec, that responsibility of smashing-up the reactionary ideologues fell on the shoulders of the Internationalists who took up their responsibility gloriously. They came into existence like a thunder-clap and spread like the speed of lightening, storming and overpowering the headquarters of the bourgeoisie on many fronts. With their spirit and sense of urgency and commitment and their utter loyalty to the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism, they became a mighty opposition to all the capitalist trends. Marxism-Leninism was brought into the open anew – inflicting a death blow to revisionism and dogmatism. It is no wonder that all the capitalists hate the Internalists so much! The contempt and anger which the Internationalists earned from the capitalist ideologues is a matter of great pride to the revolutionary mass movement. For it is only this style and resolve which can stifle the arrogance of the bourgeoisie and put the revisionist and dogmatists into a passive position. So, comrades, let us say it clearly for the historical record that the youth and student movement in Canada and Quebec was what was new during the 1960’s and the emergence and development of the Internationalists was the concentrated expression of what was new in the youth and student movement. This new, in brief, is nothing but the emergence of a proletarian Party based on Mao Tsetung Thought, the Marxism-Leninism of our era. Many of you comrades have direct experience with the new. You must recall how the bourgeoisie attempted to change the character of this new and tried to prettify the resurging old in several areas as something “new”. Some of you came up as the Internationalists but all of you have gone through the same or quite similar experiences over the past decade. Your marching forward is further proof that what the Internationalists fought for is correct. And, your meeting today, the merging of various tendencies is bound to turn into a torrent of a new type, a torrent which is irreconcilably in the service of the proletariat and can not be checked by the exploiting classes.
Comrades: it is you that is new. It is the revolutionary youth and student movement which is new. It is the Marxist-Leninist theory which is new. It is the Conference in which you are participating in that is new. Only a more concentrated and more consolidated new can emerge from this new today. Just look around – everything else is old. Revisionism is old with modernised adjustments. Trotskyism is old. There is the same old intellectualism nestling in some dark corners. There is the same anarchists scrubbing the backside of the capitalists and making their living out of it. There is the same old economism and reformism binding the working class movement hand and foot.
Comrades: When everthing is said and done, various speeches have been made, resolutions formalised and a general account of the revolutionary mass movement has been taken you must keep in mind that this new will end up in a blind alley and suffocate itself if all its programmes and policies do not have serving the labouring masses as the first principle, the foundation stone of its policy. We say: Everything for the working class! This is new. We say: The working class must exercise leadership in everything. This is new. And, Let us use the fervour, vigour and revolutionary enthusiasm of the youth and student movement to arouse the proletarians and serve their basic interests. Let us build a Party of the new type to organise the working class as the ruling class of Canada and Quebec.
Comrades: It is of great satisfaction to see Vancouver revolutionary people making yet another advance and opening up yet another path for revolutionaries elsewhere in Canada and Quebec to follow. It is all to the glory of the revolutionary people in Vancouver that they could overcome subjectivism, unite on principle and contribute wholeheartedly to this growth and development. Your contribution comrades, is great! The old spark of revolution is very much alive in Vancouver. This spark is irresistibly growing in intensity and enlarging in influence. The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) warmly applauds the revolutionary people of Vancouver for not only giving birth to the Internationalists and the Partisan Organisation but also for giving birth to the great spirit of unity and solidarity amongst Marxist-Leninists. This is a great contribution. Vancouver has become the representative of what is new in Canada and Quebec. Let this Conference be the Conference of a new revolutionary wave which will spread all across Canada and Quebec.
Let the revolutionary people of Vancouver follow the footsteps of the small handful of Internationalists who marched all across Canada and Quebec under the Learn from the people campaigns and who established revolutionary units in most of the cities. Let the revolutionary people of Vancouver assist the trend of defeating the bourgeois influence in the working class women’s movement and develop it as part and parcel of the anti-imperialist and socialist revolution.
Comrades: The basic sentiment of the masses is with revolution. The deepest desire of all genuine Marxist-Leninists is to unite. All the flimsy attempts to suppress the revolutionary masses by the capitalist state machine or the attempts of the revisionists and dogmatists to split the ranks of the people are bound to failure. Revolution is bound to triumph! People are bound to win!
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) hereby publicly announces that it highly values the developments which are taking place amongst the revolutionary people in Vancouver and vigorously supports the recent struggle of the CPC(M-L) – Vancouver Branch – and the Partisan Organisation to establish a new Centre in BC. The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) dissolves its Vancouver Branch as well as its BC Provincial Committee and will support the new Centre which will be established during this Conference.
Comrades: It is very encouraging to see so many of us getting together. But, compared with the numbers we need, it is still very small. If, however, we believe in the correctness of our political line and strengthen the solidity of our organisation we will certainly mobilise large numbers of proletarians into this professional army of the proletarians.
Comrades: Do everything in your power to safeguard the Marxist-Leninist political line amongst the masses of proletarians and defend the Party with all your might. There are no saviours which are going to descend from the heavens to liberate us. There are no capitalists with a divine mandate to rule us. Let us take things into our own hands. Let us build the proletarian Party. Let us serve the revolutionary mass movement against capitalist exploitation and imperialist domination. Let us march gloriously onto the road of victory.
LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTIONARY PEOPLE OF VANCOUVER! LONG LIVE THE CONTRIBUTION OF REVOLUTIONARY PEOPLE OF VANCOUVER!
LONG LIVE THE MASS DEMOCRATIC ANTI-IMPERIALIST REVOLUTION!
LONG LIVE THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CANADA (MARXIST-LENINIST)!
(This article first.appeared in People’s Canada Daily News, Volume 2, Number 12, November 8, 1972)