The Party of the Canadian proletariat, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) has emerged out of the historical struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. In the past, on countless occasions, the proletariat rose up against the tyranny of the exploiters and made bold attempts to overthrow them. On each occasion, despite great heroism and self-sacrifice, these struggles failed. The proletariat did not have its own political party capable of leading the revolutionary struggles, building the unity of the class, overcoming all obstacles, overthrowing the enemy and marching forward until total victory.
Will the proletariat have its own political party with its own mission and transform the world in its own image by violently overthrowing all exploiting classes; or will it remain an appendage of the bourgeoisie, without its own mission and be transformed in the image of the exploiter to remain forever a slave class? Class struggle has been extremely sharp on this question throughout the world.
The proletariat has striven for over 100 years in Canada to build its own party. During the 1860’s it began widely disseminating Marxism and founded the London, Ontario chapter of the International Workingmen’s Association. Later, inspired by the Great October Bolshevik Revolution, the proletariat took up the dissemination of Leninism and established the Party in 1921. The Party won the support of thousands of Canadian working people and at one time over 30,000 joined its ranks until it was liquidated by its revisionist leadership. The struggle to build the Party suffered a temporary setback.
The Marxist-Leninists fought between 1930 and 1970 to defeat revisionism and continue building the Party. One after another these struggles failed, allowing the revisionists to continue liquidating the Party and the whole revolutionary mass movement. The struggle to solve these problems gave rise to the theory and tactics of solving them, and it layed the basis of forward motion in party building. With the great international polemics against revisionism and its betrayals, and the beginning of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, the Marxist-Leninists summed up their experience, united their revolutionary ranks ever more closely, forged ahead in mighty strides and built the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) in 1970.
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) took up the historical task begun by the proletarians of the 1860’s. The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) is determined to fulfill the aspirations of the working class to overthrow the exploiters and build a new, revolutionary, People’s Republic of Canada. The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) will lead the whole Canadian working people in building this new state under the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) is the only political party with this programme on its agenda! Long Live the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)!
Today, the Party is being built among a people with great revolutionary traditions. Hundreds of comrades and friends, together with thousands of the Canadian people, have stood up to oppose U.S. imperialism and the Canadian monopoly capitalist class over the past few years. They have resisted the most fascist and barbarous attacks and have not flinched. They have been the victims of jailings, beatings and deportations. They have lost their jobs and sustained the breaking up of their families, but they have not wavered from the revolutionary path, they have held high the red banner of Mao Tsetung Thought and have unlimited faith in the Party and in the Canadian people!
Look at Canada today. The struggles of the working class are exploding on all fronts. The Native Indians and Inuit people, who have fought valiantly for centuries, are fighting back ever more fiercely, and their struggles are increasingly ferocious. The Quebec people are not putting up with the fascist plans of the Anglo-Canadian colonialists and are making preparations to deal them still heavier blows. Internationally, the whole world’s people are taking the road of revolution, are building closer links and are learning from each other. In this revolutionary situation, who is advocating Advance! and who is advocating Retreat! The whole Party and the Canadian people are demanding the former. The exploiters are demanding the latter.
The Native Indian and Inuit people are demanding we advance! The Quebec people are demanding we advance! The whole Canadian working class and people are demanding we advance!
To uphold this responsibility, those revolutionaries who emerged from the youth and student movement and who have already built the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), must unite ever more firmly, transform themselves through revolutionary struggle, combat the pernicious influence of the holy alliance of the “left” and use the Party as the decisive instrument in developing the struggles of the masses. Those who advocate Retreat! are those who see no need for the Party, those who are fitted with selfish blinkers and are blind to the problems of the masses. They are the capitulators, the “creative Marxists”, the “non-dogmatic Marxists”, the “Quebecois Marxists” – those who whimper and whine in the backyard of the working class movement. They are serving the Canadian monopoly capitalist class. They are a major roadblock to revolution, in the Party and in the society as a whole. The people have utter contempt for them.
Can the struggle to oppose liquidation and to build the Party be “peaceful” and “harmonious”? There are those who advocate such nonsense. “Peace” and “harmony” will allow preservation of the old. One can then advocate Marxism for others and revisionism for oneself and not be called to answer for this deception. Can the destruction of imperialist society be “peaceful” and “harmonious”? Who besides the imperialists themselves ask us to adopt this pernicious line? When imperialist influences come up to undermine and liquidate the work of the Party, why should we not wage relentless battles against them and establish dictatorship over them so that they will not divert us from the path on which we are travelling, the path begun by the Canadian proletariat in the 19th century? The whole Canadian working class and people are demanding of us: Yes, smash them up, establish dictatorship over them and continue your work. We are watching you, we are with you, we have confidence in you!
Alien to this spirit and this mission are the centrists. They do not believe that the proletariat must have its own political party with its own historical mission. Within and without the Party they desperately try to smash, isolate and liquidate the Party. They are terrified of the revolutionary mass movement and attempt to build a political programme which suits their despicable class interests and not the class interests of the proletariat. As a result they are the most dogmatic and sectarian of people, they do not believe that the masses have unbounded enthusiasm for socialism and revolution and they are the cancer which will grow and spread if it is not torn out by its roots and eradicated with the revolutionary fire. These centrists over the past few years have come up once again to sap the revolutionary energy of the masses, promote disintegration, divert cadres and supporters from the task of building the Party and leading the masses. They are opposed to anything alive because such growth and vigour demands that they fundamentally change or become exposed as the counter-revolutionaries that they are.
Waging class struggle is not an abstraction. It is not simply marching in demostrations, participating in strikes, rallies, meetings and nothing else. Waging class struggle to build the Party is also not an abstraction, but it is waged on a day to day, minute to minute basis againsf those who would liquidate the Party and its revolutionary political line. Waging class struggle to build the Party is the decisive struggle today which will determine whether the anti-U.S. imperialist revolution in Canada advances forward to socialism or is liquidated in the interests of fascism.
The reactionary political dogmas of the centrists, of the terrorists and reformists, are being daily combatted in the Party. They will not be allowed to rise and liquidate the revolution. The dictatorship against them must be thorough and resolute. Members and supporters of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) are most determined to carry on this struggle and escalate the work of strengthening the central organs of the Party and using the Central organs to lead the mass movement in Canada.
A great revolutionary storm, led by the working class, is soon going to sweep the country. The masses are rising, discussing political affairs and are becoming more and more determined to take the destiny of Canada in their own hands. At the same time the Party is marching gloriously forward step by step and has deep faith in the revolutionary capacity of the Canadian people. If the communists persist over a long period of time, unite their ranks still more closely, weed out the alien class elements and go deep among the masses, then victory will belong to the Canadian people.
Is it any wonder then that the Party is the target of attack of the reactionary alliance of fascists, social-fascists and the forces of the state machine? Is it any wonder that close to 1600 members, supporters and friends of the Party have been arrested since 1968? Is it any wonder that comrades of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) spend large amounts of time in the fascist jails of the monopoly capitalist class? No, these things are only natural. The imperialists and the ruling class of Canada have been doing these things, and worse, to the working people for over the last 100 years. Now the day of collective settling of accounts is drawing near.
During the last ten years the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) has gone through basically two periods. The first period, 1963-68, was when some initial problems of Party building were solved, when the revolutionary youth and student movement was in full upsurge, when the national liberation struggle of the Quebec people developed to a new level, when the Native Indian people and the Inuit people became more and more conscious in their struggle for their hereditary rights and against policies of genocide perpetrated against them and when the revisionist party of Canada totally degenerated into a counter-revolutionary party based on reformism and social fascism. The second period, 1968-73 was when the ideology and politics of the imperialists, the monopoly capitalists and the holy alliance of the “left” came under revolutionary fire, when the large-scale dissemination of Mao Tsetung Thought took place, when thousands of young Canadians and Quebecois rose up to combat the fascism of the state machine and fight for the basic rights of the working and oppressed people and when the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) was founded, grew in struggle, developed high point in the revolutionary mass movement of the Canadian people.
A new revolutionary period is emerging. The forces of reaction are in a desperate situation and do not know how to extricate themselves from disaster. They are becoming increasingly fascist, and the people are seeing the need for social revolution. The working class is rising, and it is the responsibility of all progressive people to unite, go deep into the masses and lead the revolution forward. The Party is totally dedicated to this historical task.
Today, who cannot see the new Canada growing in the womb of the old? The High Priests of the old Canada are threatening violence and terror, but they are not the makers of world history. History today is being written by the masses of the people in their hundreds of thousands. The oppressed working masses have a revolutionary, communist political party which has learned many lessons from the past and which is leading the revolutionary struggle forward. Anti-imperialist, socialist revolution is on the agenda for Canada today. The old social conditions are bursting asunder.
Communist revolutionaries! Learn from this historical experience. Persist in the struggle to build the Party and lead the masses. Persist in opposing the counter-revolutionary alliance, make self the target of proletarian revolution and continue on the path opened up by the Party’s work of the last ten years. Look back and see where we have come from and what has been accomplished. Look at the new generation of Canadians, born into a revolutionary Canada where Mao Tsetung Thought already is illuminating the land. Does this not show us all that the victory of the Canadian people is near?
Communist revolutionaries! Study and execute the decisions of the Ind Congress of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)!
STRENGTHEN THE CENTRALISED ORGANS OF THE PARTY! LEAD THE ACTUAL STRUGGLES OF THE MASSES!
LONG LIVE THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CANADA(MARXIST-LENINIST)!
LONG LIVE MARXISM-LENINISM-MAO TSETUNG THOUGHT!