First Published: Canadian Worker, Vol 3, No 5, July 1971
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
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When Trudeau made his report to the Canadian Manufacturers’ Association, he was full of good news for profiteers, and bad news for workers. No new taxes for the rich, coupled with the “hard-headed” plan to keep unemployment at a sufficient level to drive wages down and increase speed-up – otherwise called “fighting inflation”.
Trudeau and his cohorts are very resourceful when it comes to tricks to head off the resistance of angry workers. For example, he announces from time to time that an “upswing” is under way in the economy. Then when pressed, we hear the admission from the other side of his mouth: the “up-swing” will take about THREE YEARS to get us back to the rose-garden called “normal”. In other words, a steep climb to a treadmill.
Faced with student unemployment the old hustler has out done himself. Two million students are looking for work. To divert the frustration that they and their families feel, Trudeau launches a big “see Canada” programme, “Hitch-hike”, “Go West, young man”, etc. He’s saying: “hit the road, bum”...but with a smile.
With these gimmicks of “up-swings” and songs of the “open road”, the bosses are hoping to buy time in order to patch-up the economy. In the States, their pal Nixon is going through similar gyrations as the unemployed rolls grow and working class rebellions increase.
Europe is the same story. In Britain, all the big capitalists are looking at each other like starving sharks and saying: “Rolls Royce is a goner, who’s next? ”
Yugoslavia is exporting its unemployed by the thousands to do the dirty work of Europe. In Poland the workers have shown their disgust with phoney Communists who are seeking to re-establish capitalism. In France the workers made a near fatal thrust at the little “Big Man”, De Gaulle in 1968. This Spring French auto workers renewed the attack with a major strike against Renault.
Every capitalist country is experiencing “tremors.” They’re all desperately passing the U.S. buck and the buck ain’t worth much. No wonder Trudeau seems to be catching every plane out of Ottawa. He’s hoping to drum up business around the world for the Canadian Capitalists. He told the manufacturers that his trips to Russia and Asia, plus the initiative of recognizing the People’s Republic of China, had “opened the door” for Canada’s bosses.
Relations with China have raised the hopes of the big shots. The Word is out all over the capitalist world that the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has stalled. As is now traditional practice, Trudeau and Co. stepped in first where Nixon dared not tread. Satisfied that the “moderates” were in charge in China and ready to do business, the signal was given to the U.S. bosses. Life magazine and the ping pong players took care of the rest.
The imperialists already knew Russia was a soft touch. They and their “jet set” pals know that you can drink coke, stay in a Holiday Inn and watch “go-go” girls throughout the ex-socialist countries of Eastern Europe. There are some obvious reasons for their optimism about China.
If you compiled a list of the most anti-working class states in the world (including especially the phonies and sabateurs who pose as socialists), you would find almost to a man, Chou En-lai’s dinner guests of the past few months.
Included would be such counter-revolutionary starlets as:
Princess Fatema Pahlavi of the Kingdom of Iran. Her family is spending $75 million this summer on a gala ball to celebrate being the world’s oldest Monarchy (2,500 years). Guests are to include King Hussein, King Constantine, Emperor Haile Selassie, and President Podgorney. Not present will be the workers and peasants whose sweat and oppression make it possible. Also absent will be several thousand revolutionary opponents of the Shah, owing to the fact that they’re dead.
Nicolae Ceausescu, the Romanian Tito who set-up a big demonstration for Nixon in which people had to wave the U.S. flag (something Nixon can’t accomplish at home). He also promoted Israel during the Zionist war on the Arabs in 1967.
Couve de Murville, De Gaulle’s old partner in crime, a common garden variety imperialist who shared in the “honour” of smashing the revolutionary workers and students of France in 1968.
Our “own” Chester Ronning, A real sugar-coated capitalist if there ever was one. He’s been the go-between in Trudeau’s plan to “open thedoor” to China. After talks with his “long time friend” Chou En-lai, he says, China is not “exporting revolution”.
Various Pakistani generals who by now must be collecting decorations for conquering the East Pakistani majority as well as putting down the workers and peasants, East and West, during the upheavals in 1968.
Some dilaectical wizards describe this nauseating parade as a diplomatic “victory” for the Chinese revolution. If that’s a victory we’d rather not think of how a defeat would look.
Actually, the jig us up for those with serious hopes of the Chinese leaders playing a revolutionary role. The source of the new line is revealed by Wilfred Burchett in the National Guardian. Writing from Peking, he says simply: the “extremists” have been gotten rid of. Those who burned the British embassy in reprisal for British persecution of Hong Kong Communists, have been “severely punished”. Burchett, like Ceaucescu, has long been an advocate of ending the ideological struggle against the Soviet revisionists, and is delighted to report that the “old cadre” takes a dim view of “Maoist” parties in the West.
The revolutionary forces that are gathering in every capitalist country will continue to fight for workers’ power, no matter who is throwing confetti in Moscow or Peking. Revolutionary Communist ideas and practice have never been more necessary or so welcome to the struggles of the workers and peasants around the world. No amount of “diplomacy” can prop-up capitalism or save the exploiters from their inevitable “just reward”.