First Published: In Struggle No. 69, September 2, 1976
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
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The capitalist system in Canada is being more and more seriously shaken by a strong mass movement inside of which a young Marxist-Leninist movement is rapidly developing. The proletarian revolution is on the agenda in Canada and more and more people are intent on breaking bourgeois dictatorship and replacing it with the proletariat’s dictatorship over the exploiters.
It’s in this context of great spontaneous struggle, when the science of Marxism-Leninism is cruelly missing among the proletariat to guide its struggles, that IN STRUGGLE! will be publishing its national theoretical journal starting in September. But it’s also in the context of the intensification of the struggle within the Canadian Marxist-Leninist movement, in the past year, over the path of revolution to be followed in our country and over the unity of communists, that IN STRUGGLE! undertakes the publication of a national theoretical journal.
But why a journal? Why not simply add a few pages to the newspaper? Aren’t the pamphlets that IN STRUGGLE! publishes in its newspaper enough?
First of all, the newspaper does not always allow for an in depth examination of all aspects of a question, to develop all the points. If the newspaper were to do this, it could no longer comment on a multitude of subjects, it could no longer day after day synthesize the proletarian viewpoint on the active and transforming reality of the class struggle in our country and in the world.
In fact, it wouldn’t be the starting point from which we can awaken the whole of the working class to its long and short terms interests. Thus it isn’t a question of establishing a division between the subjects taken up in the journal and those dealt with in the newspaper: only an approach appropriate to both a more general and more in-depth explanation will set the journal apart from the newspaper.
In order to permit the widest and the most extensive communist education of the working class, in order to answer the desire of the workers’ leaders to educate themselves through the study and debate on all the fundamental questions of the revolution, we need a journal, that will arm the communists in their unceasing struggle against opportunism and revisionism.
However it will not replace the pamphlets. On the contrary, while the pamphlets’ goal is to make the principles that must guide the actions of communists accessible to the greatest possible number, the journal will go further in applying these principles to a concrete analysis of our country and thus defining the tasks of Canadian Marxist-Leninists on the course of revolution. But, as with the pamphlets and the newspaper, we invite all comrades to gather, study and discuss the journal.
What will the journal talk about? As we mentioned, everything the newspaper regularly talks about and more: the journal will permit us to put forward our proposal on the struggle for the unity of Canadian Marxist-Leninists and it will publish our program. This will ensure that the struggle for unity will deal principally with questions of strategy which we clearly recognize has not always been the case.
Thus the first issue of the journal will be used to prepare the first national conference on unity organized by IN STRUGGLE!. This day-long conference will be held October 9 and will end with IN STRUGGLE!’s annual celebration. By publishing our positions on many subjects at the heart of the present debate in the Marxist-Leninist movement, our journal will permit the active participation in the national conference of the greatest possible number of Marxist-Leninists groups, of communists workers and anti-imperialist groups. Indeed, on top of being a platform for our political line, the journal will also make a point of publishing viewpoints that differ from ours as well as polemical answers, in order to heighten the debate in the struggle for unity. This practice will contribute to the reinforcement of the capacity of all French and English-speaking individuals and groups, whatever their level of development, to assume an active role in the polemic’s development.
Later, other conferences will be held and each time the journal will prove to be a precious instrument to lead the struggle over line and permit the triumph of the correct line, resulting from a true confrontation of a maximum of viewpoints.
The journal will also publish evaluation summaries of specific struggles written by communist workers. This will be another way of educating the working class and of increasing its capacity to concretely lead the struggle for socialism, now and in the future.
At first, Proletarian Unity will be published every two months, but with the aim of becoming a monthly publication in its second year of publication. This goal will be more easily achieved if readers subscribe in great numbers to the journal. Indeed, the funds thus ensured will better enable us to plan its development. It’s an important militant gesture we invite all readers to undertake.
Help build the indestructible unity of the proletariat around its vanguard party!
Buy and distribute IN STRUGGLE!’s journal!