First Published: People’s Canada Daily News Vol 1 No. 40, January 11, 1971
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
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HAIL THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF THE QUEBEC COMMUNIST MOVEMENT BY INTENSIFYING MILITANT STRUGGLE AGAINST FASCIST OCCUPATION OF QUEBEC ( translated and reprinted from Le Patriote Rouge, vol. 11, no.2)
On November 10, 1968, the Quebec Communist Movement (Marxist-Leninist ), Les Intellectuals at Ouvriers Patriots du Quebec (IOPQ), was formed, inheriting the revolutionary patriotic traditions of the people of Quebec and advancing these traditions by organising a genuinely revolutionary group based on MARXISM-LENINISM-MAO TSE TUNG THOUGHT.
IOPQ was formed during a period when the revolutionary people of Quebec and the working and oppressed people of the world were recognising at an increasingly larger scale that to advance their patriotic struggle, It is essential to build the revolutionary party based on the working class ideology of our era, MAO TSE TUNG THOUGHT, adopt the style set by the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, and to launch a fierce attack on the sold out elements: national chauvinism, Trotskyism, Revisionism, social democracy and new “left”.
The Comrades who led the formation of the IOPQ thus raised the struggle of the Quebec people to a higher stage by concretizing the experience of the working and oppressed people of the world By using MAO TSE TUNG THOUGHT as a guide, they analysed the condition in Quebec and advanced the slogan of NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLE OF THE QUEBEC PEOPLE. They concretely showed the main enemy of the Quebec people at this stage is US imperialism and Anglo-Canadian colonialism which with the assistance of the traitors to the Quebec people is ruthlessly oppressing and exploiting the people of Quebec. Today this slogan is the slogan of the Quebecois who are more and more concentrating their force against the main enemy.
We resolutely fought against chauvinist, social democratic and anarchist traditions which attempted to diffuse the revolutionary upsurge of our people by promoting’language” as the main issue, by arrogantly claiming that the Quebecois do not need the scientific guideline of MAO TSE TUNG THOUGHT because the Quebec people are “different” from all the other working and oppressed people of the world who are successfully waging struggle against the common enemy, U. S. imperialism and using the common guide of the international proletariat, MAO TSE TUNG THOUGHT. During the course of our struggle we realized that the broad masses of our people are opposed to chauvinism and anti-communism, and instead are eager to follow MAO TSE TUNG THOUGHT and be guided by it. The struggle against anti-working class ideas surged forward at a large scale. The Holy Alliance of opportunists of all kinds began to fade, as the broad masses of the Quebec people began to grasp Mao Tse Tung Thought.
Wide scale dissemination of MAO TSE TUNG THOUGHT, adopting a new proletarian style of work, with full faith in the burning desire of the Quebec people to rise in a storm and wipe out criminal monopoly capitalists, with full loyalty to MAO TSE TUNG THOUGHT, the organisation grew to the stage where the IOPQ dissolved itself giving rise to the PARTI COMMUNISTE DU QUEBEC (MARXISTE-LENINISTE ) on May 24, 1970.
Since the formation of the IOPQ and especially since the founding of the PARTI COMMUNISTE DU QUEBEC (MARXISTE-LENINISTE), we have waged tit for tat struggle against Anglo-Canadian colonialism and U. S. imperialism. We have defended our right to distribute working class ideas among the people, to hold meetings to advance our struggle, to demonstrate against the vicious oppression of our people and to have Communist bookshops in the service of a Quebec people.
Whenever the fascists attacked at the instigation of their U.S imperialist masters, we resisted with everything we had. In the two years the hundreds of arrests, the Nazi atrocities and the Hitlerite attacks on the bookshops have only served to inspire the unity of the Party and to broaden the support for MAO TSE TUNG THOUGHT amongst the people who increasingly began to hail the PCQ(ML) as the inheritor in this era of the patriotic traditions of the Quebec people’s struggle. Attacks, arrests and jailings of supporters of patriotic organizations such as FLQ, represlsgting the revolutionary sentiment of the Quebec people, has only resulted in more and more people grasping the fundamental truth that Quebec can be liberated only through armed struggle.
In recent weeks, frightened by the revolutionary zeal of the Quebec people to use revolutionary violence against the counter revolutionary violence of U.S.imperialism and its lackey Canadian government in alliance with the traitors to the Quebec people, the imperialists and their flunkies have unleashed fascism on our people. The colonialist army, with thousands of foreign RCMP, FBI and local reactionary police, is occupying our soil in the same way as Nazi occupation forces did in Europe with the connivance of the European stooges of fascism.
Comrades: the people of the world fought against the fascism of the occupying forces of Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan in the 1940’s and crushed it. The people of Quebec are bound to defeat fascism right here by participating in the world-wide struggle against the new Hitlerites as they head for total collapse. The Quebec people are stronger on a long term basis than the U. S. imperialists and their stooges because our cause is just, has the support of the people of the world and our struggle is taking place in the era of people’s war. On the other hand although the U.S. imperialists appear to be strong now, their barbarous attacks against the people of the world have no support and their aggression is taking place in the era when imperialism is heading for total collapse. The Patriotic fighters and the members and supporters of the PCQ(ML) have reflected this revolutionary attitude in the last few weeks by denouncing every storm trooper tactic of the fascist police, by distributing tens of thousands of leaflets and journals, by daring to declare in the open that THE UNARMED STRUGGLE OF THE QUEBEC PEOPLE IS BOUND TO DEVELOP INTO ARMED STRUGGLE! and by leading the struggle right in the jails where about two dozen Communists have been fighting in the last two weeks. In order to launch a full scale attack on the fascists, we must intensify and broaden this struggle. For, as Chairman Mao has pointed out, “EVERYTHING REACTIONARY IS THE SAME, IF YOU DO NOT HIT IT, IT WON’T FALL!”.
There are social-democrats who will try to show that fascism is “too strong” and we should not fight against it and pray for mercy. They do not oppose the counter-revolutionary violence of fascist Trudeau but actively oppose the revolutionary violence which people use to defend themselves.These opportunists use anything to buiild their careers such as attempting to reduce this ruthless fascism to a question of change in laws, better treatment of political prisoners (as if the bourgoisie is interested in treating revolutionaries “well” ), or of making sure that the Nazis resort to bourgeois legality to oppress the people. These parasites show their ugly features every time imperialist is in trouble by running around whimpering that imperialism is strong and the people are weak. They push the line that the police and army are “everywhere” and can “catch” the people, beat them up, put them in jail for a long time, and therefore we should not fight back! Comrades, anyone following this line and advocating its implementation is attempting to “stop” the revolutionary enthusiasm of the broad masses who want to fight fascism and are proud to make sacrifices.
To concretely integrate with the masses, to serve as vanguard, to lead them to fight against fascism means to lead the anti-fascist struggle. That is why all preparations should be made to build the broadest possible united front to fight the fascist repression of our people.
The fight against fascism cannot grow without ruthlessly attacking all forms of revisionism wherever it comes up.Revisionism means “do not fight”. It means “let the fascism continue and we will fight at a later date”. It means not leading the people in the struggle against fascism. Revisionism means, “preserve yourself by not daring to struggle”. A revolutionary attitude serves the people by building the revolutionary party, by arousing the masses to dare to struggle and dare to make sacrifices. Only in this way can we build the Party and serve the people.
That is why comrades must dare to defy fascist repression. The Parti Communiste du Quebec(Marxiste-Leniniste) calls on members and supporters to organize into mobile, flexible and small units, to dare to inspire the masses by putting yourself forward as an example of patriotic heroism, demonstrate the anger of the people against fascism by wide scale distribution of revolutionary agitational literature, plaster the walls with condemnations of fascist repression and take public stands for revolutionary violence of the people against counter-revolutionary violence of the state.
Quebecois Comrades, the working class has fought many battles, its fearlessness is terrifying to the imperialists, its force is invincible, Working people, revolutionary intellectuals and other progressive sections, dare to defy fascist repression. It is in this process alone that we can build a fighting organization capable of leading the Quebec people to victory over fascism.
DEATH TO FASCISM!
THE UNARMED STRUGGLE OF THE QUEBEC PEOPLE IS BOUND TO DEVELOP INTO ARMED STRUGGLE!
LONG LIVE THE PARTI COMMUNISTE DU QUEBEC (MARXISTE-LENINISTE)!
LONG LIVE THE NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLE OF THE QUEBEC PEOPLE!
DEATH TO US IMPERIALISM AND ANGLO-CANADIAN COLONIALISM!